Minimalism is action
If you’ve been paying attention to social media over the past several years, you might have come across a thing called Minimalism. A lot of people perceive Minimalism as a way of tuning down the amount of stuff they own. This idea is very true. However, having less stuff cluttering my home isn’t the only thing I’ve seen change since I adhered to such a lifestyle. Being a minimalist for almost 3 years has made me realize that the changes aren’t concerned only with the amount of stuff I have, but also with the way I work.
If you’re wondering what the heck I’m talking about, let me dissect it for you. I’ll start off by sharing a quote extracted from the best selling book Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek which is “how you do anything is how you do everything.”
Well, the year was 2019 and I had just began my journey to minimalism. My wife and I had just decided that we would go travel once we had our office affairs in order. Coincidently - or not - our life coach at the time, told us about Tidying up with Marie Kondo series and we coupled it with the 2016 Netflix show Minimalism: A documentary about the important things. It made sense for us to start downsizing as we were serious about our travel plans. Fast forward to October, 2019 we had literally one backpack each and an extra bag for our camera gear. We went from having a walk-in closet, plus a 4u chest drawer in our bedroom, in addition to a triple door wardrobe for each of us in our 3 bedroom house. In short, we had literally a fuck load of stuff (pardon my french).
Almost one year later, we found ourselves renting a 2 bedroom apartment where we ended up sharing half of a double door wardrobe. Which we still do to this day. It was then time to settle down and I soon started realising that I was a lot more keen on doing things, getting engaged in activities and a lot less prone to planning things in advance or carefully preparing to do what I had to do. And the most striking realisation I had was that because I was executing more, I had more results. Having more results allowed me to better and faster assess my plans and actions and therefore to adapt to different circumstances and adjust to keep on track to reach my goals.
Such unconscious shift regarding my work habits - less planing and preparation and more execution - seems to be in alignment with the notion of the way we do anything is the way we do everything. Owning less stuff and living lighter led me to almost always wear the same clothes and taught me two things: one is that contrary to what we’re led to believe, most people don’t even notice that we’re wearing the same stuff day in day out and two, I was significantly less worried about people noticing it at all. Thus, my diminished worry on what people think of me enabled me to do more stuff without considering what others would think of me. Hence, I was more active and less reactive. I became more of an executer and less of a planner. And my job was literally plan and manage projects.
My conclusion about Minimalism has been that not only having less stuff allows me to live lighter and with more freedom, but it's also shown me that over preparing inevitably leads to less action. Perhaps, even inaction or paralysis. Moreover, the less active and engaged we are with our passions and our purpose, the more empty we feel inside. Empty of results, empty of joy, empty of fulfilment. Therefore, the more we need to do to compensate for such sensation of lack. And the most important message here is that compensation comes in a whole bunch of forms, shapes and colours. I’m referring to distracting behaviours such as overindulgence in social media, drugs and other addictive substances, need to have control over how people behave and events unfold, dropping out of relationships, just to name a few. Although some of these behaviours produce a certain amount of relief, they aren’t the resolution to our problems. The only two things I learn that really help and produce long term results are looking at life (people, events, places, etc) as they are as opposed to how you think or believe they should be and by practicing letting go. Whether you’re letting go of your material stuff or your emotional stuff. We’ve got to practice letting go every moment of every day until the end of times.
Letting go of our material stuff is quite simple and self-explanatory, but if you’re now thinking “oh, give me a break! I know I have to let go of my past negative experiences. I’ve been going to therapy for the past 9 years but I can’t seem to understand how to do it.” Well, let me break it down to do in three very easy and simple steps:
1 - NOTICE when you are tense, worked up or stressed out. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the middle of throwing a tantrum like a 2 year-old or whether shit hit the fan and it seems to late. Noticing it late is better than later which is even better than not noticing it at all.
2 - When you notice all these emotions welling up inside you or even blowing up RELAX YOUR HANDS and BREATHE DEEPLY IN AND OUT. We’re talking about letting go, therefore relaxing your hands kind of make sense, right?!
3 - REPEAT step 1 and 2 as many times as you possibly can every single day. Remember, the way you do anything is how you do everything. Hence, if you get in the habit of relaxing and breathing in the midst of things getting ugly, you will inevitably get good at this stuff. Furthermore, you may even start enjoying relaxing and letting go. Perhaps, even make it your life mission.
The one thing we all know for sure is that nothing we buy, use, take or do externally will solve the problems we have inside. It’s like looking for the keys you’ve left at home half way across the world. You ain’t going to find it no matter what you do or say.
