Simple Sustainability: How Minimalism Brings Clarity
by Sky Trombly –
For the uninitiated, minimalism is about stuff. That’s why I wasn’t very attracted to it initially. On the one hand, I was taught a sort of moralistic value system where living like an ascetic was spiritual and living with too much stuff could warrant you a place on cable television à la Hoarders where your bad habits could be aired before millions of Americans. On the other hand, I was a Hoarder, capital “H”. I wanted to see, learn, do everything and I collected the paraphernalia to do it all. I never let anything go because I figured I could get around to it, eventually.
The thing is … shocker… I’m not immortal. “It all” turned out to be a whole lot bigger and broader than I could ever have known.
The funny thing is, I began my minimalist journey from the lens of wanting to do it all, so I could check “become a minimalist” off my list.
Everything that I had collected had had a reason for entering my life. Some stuff was easy to let go of … old receipts and garbage. But most of my junk was there because I had not made more difficult decisions about the stuff and what they represented to me. For example, my violin collected dust while I waited to decide whether I would invest the time in practicing it or simply get rid of it.
This is all to say that clutter doesn’t appear out of nowhere. It comes to us because, as Barbara Hempell* says:
“Clutter is postponed decisions.”
It bore repeating. Think about it. It applies everywhere and manifests in myriad ways. From the physical clutter crowding your spaces and digital clutter crowding your computer to the mental, emotional, and spiritual clutter that paralyzes you.
The paper pile on my desk is a prime example: I can’t get rid of it until I’ve decided what needs to be done with each piece. I shudder just looking at that pile, but if I decided to tackle it, I’d have more peace.
This way of looking at minimalism doesn’t just explain the cause of clutter or simplify down-sizing, it also illuminates the power and point of minimalism.
Minimalism isn’t about getting rid of stuff
If minimalism was all about getting rid of things, I don’t think it would have taken off. Voluntarily living with less has little appeal in a materialist culture where “empty” and “less” bear mostly negative connotations in the popular mind.
(That is not to say that we don’t grow to appreciate the empty and the less when freed from materialism and clutter. And, of course, some of us minimalists even start with such an aesthetic.)
Minimalism rewards practitioners beyond clearer spaces and schedules. By bringing awareness to our stuff, asking ourselves why we have it, if we need it, or if we ought to let it go, we learn about ourselves. We understand our values and priorities and fit them to our limitations. That is, minimalism gifts us with greater clarity.
5 Things I Became Clearer About
As I draw in to the end of a year with minimalism, I feel blessed to have learned about the nature of the traps I had fallen into. Ones I repeated year after year. The lessons learned from minimalism won’t be the same for everyone as we each have our own traps, but maybe hearing about mine can help illustrate the power of greater clarity.
(1) I have limitations in the realms of time, energy, money, space and so on and the number of passing fancies can, if not reigned in, overwhelm me. It is better to focus on a few at a time.
(2) I only ever live in the moment. I do not need to pay homage to my past self nor reserve resources for a hypothetical future self. I can let go of the stuff, the behaviors, and patterns of thinking that no longer serve me. And I don’t have to store things for a future self that may never arrive.
(3) I do not need to adopt anything to fit into a particular culture, stereotype, role, or group. Rather than trying to be the best “mother” or “trekkie” or whatever I can be, I will focus instead on being the best me. If in doing so, I resemble some role in another’s eye, so be it. Rather than working to fit a label, or many labels, I will adopt things that interest and serve me.
(4) I am better defined by what I do than what I have – a book on fiddle techniques does not a fiddler make. Only picking up and practicing the instrument will get me to that goal.
(5) Our sense of satisfaction, abundance, and happiness is very fluid. We can choose to practice gratitude, to set our limits, and to control our media and our beliefs to better serve us.
* Barbara Hempell is quoted in Kerry Thomas’ TEDx Talk: “From Clutter to Clarity”.
Sky has been something of a sustainability nerd for most of her life. Her goal is to empower herself and others to live in a way that is congruent with personal values – and intimately linked to the Earth. You can join her in her wanderings through the quagmire of sustainable living in every issue of Owl Light News, and on and on her blog –talkwalking.org