Takeaways from 'The Minimalists — Less Is Now'
This documentary has been heavily, significantly impacted me. It's been day-2 since I watched this, but the aftereffect is still lingering on me today when I contemplating buying that Fjallravel Ulvo fanny that I really want for my jogging session. So here are the takeaways from Netflix's The Minimalists — Less Is Now by Ryan and Josh.
Minimalist is not just about room decor, it's about decluttering, simplifying, and organizing your life.
We often confuse simplicity with easy, living a simple life takes a lot of work. Going minimalist means to remove the excess to focus on what really important. Minimalist is not just an aesthetic attribute, it is the clutter-free way of life.
We've been impulse buying too much.
We bought too much clutter into our lives, and most of the time it did not add any value. As we get more space, we want to fill it with more things, as we get more things, we need a bigger space after, the cycle will go on and on and on. What is essential, what is necessary, how much stuff is actually adding value to my life? We don’t ask ourselves enough. Do we need this thing?
How might your life be better with less?
This is hard. We live in a world full of advertisements consciously or subconsciously, we are being brainwashed thru our surroundings, social media, friends, and much more to make us feel inadequate. We will deliberately have that 'American Dreams' — status is imprinted on our possessions. I want to be someone, I'll have that expensive car, nice home with the best deco, branded sneakers, and bags. You'll think that when you have all that you gonna be happy, but your wants will upgrade over time, and the never-ending cycle is inevitable.
How can we downsize our way to happiness?
The idea of throwing the stuff that we think we won't need might sounds easy. But then, parting ways with the junk is not that easy eg. 'I might want to use it later, It is still usable'. If we just keep the item, but we don't use it, we're literally just hoarding onto it—so, just give it away, sell it, donate it, it will be more valuable to others rather than to us.
If you think to be successful is to get everything that you've ever wanted...
Are you sure that all thing that you think you need is 'really' what you really need? Or you only need it because 'other successful people have it'-type of need. That it is actually a 'want'. You see, your interest can be easily manipulated, marketers can easily create a need or perceive a need out of something that was a 'want'. We misplace our desire for belonging and satisfaction by buying more stuff.
'If I have that car/house/stuff, I'll be happy then'. If we always have this mentality, it will slowly become a spiritual thing, and you're actually worshiping possessions.
A felt need to keep up with appearances, placing an unnecessary burden on yourself in order to maintain some kind of image.
Once your basic need is met, our sense of 'enoughness' is relative to the people around us. It used to be just our friends, the circle that we're in that made us feel inadequate. Your friends are wearing these brands and if you don't own one of them you'll feel left out. Your fear of missing out (FOMO) was this small. But then, social media came; Instagram feeds, Facebook posts, Youtube vlogs of people flashing their high standards of living, traveling places, eating fancy meals. And now you feel like you need to go for the standards that are way out of your league.
We need to let go so you can have more. More time, more meaningful growth and contentment.
To get there, you need to let go of some stuff that's in the way. And as my housemate said, 'less is more' (Zati, 2021).
FIN.