Some Thoughts on Minimalism

I can’t remember how I first heard about minimalism, but I’ve been lurking observing the minimalist movement for years. Not only is minimalism aesthetically appealing, it also promotes good mental health and anti-consumerism.

People are drawn to minimalist lives for a variety of reasons. Joshua Becker decided he’d rather spend his time with his family than on maintaining stuff. Courtney Carver received a chronic illness diagnosis and decided to simplify her life and live it to the fullest. Béa Johnson moved to a smaller home and found that she not only didn’t miss all the things her family had in temporary storage, but she felt happier without them. That experience, coupled with her growing interest in environmentalism led her to inadvertently start the zero waste lifestyle movement.

While I flirted with the idea of minimalism for years, only now am I fully committed. What changed? We moved to a much smaller house, in a hurricane zone.

Crew Dog, One Sick Vet

Our current home is approximately 1,050 square feet. Although twice as big as a “large” tiny home, this is not a lot of space for two adults and a medium-sized dog. Especially two adults who have been mindlessly letting possessions accumulate for decades. Even though we tried to get rid of things before our cross-country move, we clearly did not get rid of enough, and it is now painfully obvious what does and does not fit into our new home.

If I’m honest, I would have preferred a house that was in the 1,800 -2,200 square foot range. That would have given us more room for guests and hobby equipment. But, as it turned out, this smaller house was what we could (mostly) afford in the area where we wanted to be. Location, and all that.

To be fair, our new house does have approximately 500 square feet of covered screened porch, which gives us more room when the weather is nice. However, we are learning that everything in Florida molds, mildews, rusts, or rots, and we need to be careful what we put on the porch.

To a certain extent, this applies inside the house as well, which has been a strong impetus to reduce the number of books and papers we have. Suddenly, this chore has switched from something we’d get around to someday to something we’d better do quickly, before it’s all ruined.

All the old family photos we’ve inherited? Better scan and save them before they’re ruined. Old paperwork we’ve been saving? Same.

As if this weren’t enough incentive to finally pare down our possessions, there’s also the threat of a hurricane destroying it all. We are taking the approach that it’s not a matter of if, but when. The goal is to have all the important photos and papers scanned and backed up, and to take the storage drive and the few critical papers with us in a waterproof firesafe when we evacuate.

I find it very curious that I struggled for decades to release my sentimental attachment to my stuff and to actually follow through on dedicating the time to make the difficult decisions involved in paring down my possessions, but now that I’m in this situation I find those chains falling free and the decisions becoming much easier.

It’s hard to say whether those decisions have become easier to make since I developed strong allergies to dust and mold. On the one hand, I know that it would be better for my health to get rid of old dusty paperwork and old musty books. On the other hand, I have always loved books, and I resent that it is not my choice to get rid of them – it is largely because my health requires me to do so.

So I find that I am able to part easily with the books that I read once and didn’t feel a need to read again. But the favorite books that I read over and over, or the reference books to which I frequently refer are a different story (see what I did there?). And, no, for me it is not the same to just buy the electronic copy. They are less tangible, and part of the pleasure of reading is lost. I also find it harder to quickly access the highlighted section(s) to which I want to refer, and notes aren’t the same when they’re not written in the margins near the relevant text.

But, by and large, I am surprised how much easier it is to designate things for elimination that I once found too precious to get rid of. Spousal Unit stated recently that, due to the overwhelm of too many possessions for the house size, it feels like we’re living inside a storage shed, rather than a home. Put another way, I’m sick *and* tired of stubbing my toes on all this crap. Besides, it’s just going to mold, rot, rust, or mildew anyway…

So we’ve both embraced the tiny living mindset. Finally. That part’s important too – both. We’ve had several false starts in the past, when one of us wanted to get rid of stuff, and the other one wasn’t onboard (this alternated). And while you can still get rid of your own personal stuff in that scenario, eventually you lose motivation or run out of personal stuff to downsize, and you’re left with all the joint stuff that just sits there taunting you. Since we didn’t want to fight over our stuff, that’s where it would always stall out. [Dealing with this scenario? See this helpful article from Joshua Becker.]

But now we’re both highly motivated to get rid of stuff. In fact, if we ever leave this house (hopefully many years in the future), we don’t plan to take much with us at all. You could say that we’re doing our “moving to an old folks home” downsizing now, several decades early. So far, we’ve done one road trip with the travel trailer we bought last year, and we loved the freedom. I suspect we’d like to get to the point where we have exactly what we need to travel comfortably, and just a few more things at home that make living there more comfortable – nomads with a very small home base is the lifestyle we’re aspiring to.

In addition to the mental and physical freedom that would come along with this tiny, minimalist lifestyle, there are other benefits too. Not only would we not have to worry about what’s being destroyed by a hurricane (since all the critical stuff would either backed up electronically or with us in the trailer) and not have as much to replace after a hurricane, we also will be bringing less into our environment. We care about our oceans and we care about our ecosystem. By consuming less, we’ll be bringing less into our environment that will eventually be disposed of and need a place to go. Less in the landfill. Less to run-off into our oceans. So, by having less and buying less, we will be bringing less pollution into our ecosystem, and we’ll feel good about that too.

After all, we both saw how little we truly needed to live satisfactorily when we were in the armed forces – someplace to sleep, somewhere to store your gear, someway to stay healthy, something to educate and entertain, and somehow to keep in touch with your loved ones. While we mindlessly accumulated (many) more possessions along the way, in the end that’s all we really need.

Crew Dog, One Sick Vet

So we’re getting rid of everything else, and if you want to find us, we’ll either be in/on/under the water or on the road, living our curated right-sized mindful best lives.