A Guide to Embracing Minimalism for a Fulfilling Life

Every day, you wish to have more — it can be more money, fame, or status. Hardly, you will sit down and be content with less of something.

It’s human nature.

It’s everywhere you see. People with millions of dollars are trying to get billions, and the race continues. The hedonic treadmill is for real.

Your happiness stalls, and then, you need more of something for the same baseline of happiness.

All of this is true. And thus, it’s scary. Because it means you no matter how hard you try — you will find yourself aiming to do more. Not because it’s the best thing to do but because you need to get more to sustain your current happiness level.

Where does this end?

Perhaps never, and you go on forever. The grasp of everything is so tight that you feel there is no escape from it. Until you realize it was all in your head. It always is.

Enter Minimalism

This is a big topic — idea — step.

A small exercise to get you started. Gather your belongings. Sort by the usage. Used in last month, used in last 6 months, don’t know when it was used.

Throw away the items not used for more than 6 months. You will realize you had gathered the stuff just because.

And then throw another thing — slowly you will realize you have 1000 things but only use 100 of them. Rest are either not used at all or used in 5 years. So, for them, you can always rent them if the need arises. Of course, start small and throw only 1 item at first.

You will hit the realization that it’s okay. When you are done with material things, move on to the relationships.

If you have more than 5 close friends, you need to re-evaluate. Are you feeling drained? Can you stop checking on supposedly close friends for your peace of mind?

And then you realize most are okay when once-a-month check-in and don’t require weekly meetups. You were trying too hard.

A disclaimer is that minimalism isn’t doing the minimum. Rather, it is doing what is required; often, that number is less than what you are doing now.

Share your outcomes in the comments.