In creating my own simple life I am constantly asking myself what I can edit next. As we come into the holiday season, and I read article after article about the billions of dollars people are spending on more stuff, to give to people who have lots of stuff, I am wondering when we can say we have enough.
This is not a new argument. It's almost a tired one. But I've been thinking about it a lot in the past few weeks leading up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. These events dominated the news, while people continue to lose their homes, remain jobless, underfed, underpaid, and immigrants seek safe harbors and find none, the news is interested in one thing: how many dollars we are spending on more stuff.
Bea Johnson of The Zero Waste Home, writes inspiringly about living with zero waste. The Minimalists, Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, write about what it's like to live with less things. Jay Shaffer and Dee Williams are pioneeers of the Tiny House movement. All of them are proving to us over and over again that it is possible to live with much less than what we (most/many of us) think we need.
Each of these people, and many others like them, have a voice in this new movement that is leaning into simplicity and minimalism, and is attracting followers in all age groups.
Letting go of my need for a bigger place or more stuff or cooler furniture or just fill in the blank. that is what I'm letting go of currently. The clutter in my mind that constantly nags me to make my life bigger, when I know all I really want is to make my life smaller. More manageable.
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