Joshua Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus were just two normal guys, jobs in the corporate world, a nice home, cars, clothes, etc., but they were living paycheck to paycheck and were kind of miserable. So they became minimalists. Minimalism can be described as keeping things very simple, living with the least possible amount of things. At first this seemed a little crazy to me, giving up all the things I have because I necessarily don’t need them to live, but its things I love. After watching their documentary, Minimalism, I’ve realized that you aren’t just giving up everything you own you are giving up things you can’t justify owning.
During the documentary it shows Joshua and Ryan speaking at conventions about their life-changing discovery, sharing their story with the world and how they felt a void. So they went out and bought stuff, a lot of stuff just to realize there was still something missing. When they removed all the clutter and access stuff in their life they felt free and lighter; confident they could justify the things they did own and that they had value to them. Ryan gives an example during one of the conventions about book collections, basically saying if you have a library of books that you love everything about, the smell, loaning them to friends or just re reading them, keep them don’t give them away, they have value for you; unlike the toaster oven that you may have used once or twice in a few years. That is minimalism.
The most interesting thing I learned during this documentary is how much the fashion world has changed during just a span of maybe 75 years, when our parents and grandparents were our age. Realistically the fashion industry consisted of four seasons, summer, fall, winter, spring, simplistic dressing for the weather outside. Now it’s more like 52 seasons of fashion a year. Clothing stores make us feel like we are out of season, so they push their new clothes and trends through advertising, and then naturally as consumers we feel like we need to be trendy with the new clothes when the ones we bought last week or maybe the week before are completely fine. This stuck with me the most because I feel like I’ve been guilty of this plenty of times, and it put things into perspective for me.
Now I’m not saying I’m going to box up all my things tomorrow and live completely minimal like Joshua and Ryan, but I feel like it wouldn’t hurt to do a little spring cleaning and at least remove some of the clutter. Being able to find ways to do more with less will be one of my goals for 2017 and years to come.
If you want to remove the clutter and feel free and light in the New Year here is Joshua and Ryan’s website with more information.
