A Minimalist Manifesto Made For 2023
Out with the old, in with the new
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Is Minimalism still relevant in 2023?
As often happens with new years, I’ve been pondering on the bigger questions, including this one.
There’s no doubt that Minimalism is part and parcel of crafting a simpler life - there’s nothing very simple about too much stuff. But more than a decade after The Minimalists made minimalism mainstream (or at least more visable), the general populus still seems to regard minimalism with suspicion.
Many misunderstand the concept entirely. Google “minimalism is” and you get:
Minimalism is for the rich.
Minimalism is dead.
Minimalism is bad.
I don’t buy it. I’d bet you don’t either. But perhaps it’s time for minimalism to have a new face, a new identity, one that fits in with life in 2023.
Here’s my minimalism manifesto.
Minimalism is not a fad
For as long as there has been society, there have been minimalists. The Japanese had their Zen philosophy. Henry Thoreau Walden took himself off to a cabin in the woods in the 1800s.
It’s not a fad. Not even close.
For as long as consumerism and excess exists, minimalism will exist alongside it. It’s a counter culture for sure, especially as we go further and further down the consumerism rabbit hole. But it’s there. It always has been.
It always will be.
Minimalism helps us deal with our messed-up world
We have no cash and no time. We are up to our eyeballs in debt. Our mental health is shot to pieces. Suicides are on the rise.
The system in which we live is broken. Something has got to give, changes need to be made. Otherwise, we run the risk of becoming the human embodiment of Einstein’s quote:
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Minimalism isn’t the whole answer but it’s a start. It’s a way to spend less, save more, and get out of debt. It forms a foundation for good buying habits. It’s not doing the same thing over and over - it’s disruption.
In a world that prioritizes possessions over almost anything else, minimalism is a way to control your external surroundings like almost nothing else. In a messed up world, that counts for a lot.
Minimalism about is investing in future you , not past you
We as humans seem to be very good at revelling in the past. And our attachment to stuff — particularly stuff that has little to no bearing on either our current nor future life — is a really good example of this.
I’m going to give you an extreme example here from back when my minimalist tendencies bordered on the fanatical.
A few years back, my mother gave me about 10 childhood photo albums. I spent a pleasant few hours looking through, remembering the emotions I felt when a particular photo was snapped.
I then took the best 100 or so photos and threw the rest in the trash.
Extreme? For many, yes. But hear me out.
I did this because I wanted to give future me a fighting chance. I was about to travel indefinitely and I had limited space for my stuff stored back at home. If I had kept hold of too much, I may never have left. For me, that included those photo albums.
It’s been three years since I threw out those photos. Do I regret it?
No.
I still own the best photos (many of the ones I threw had fingers in front of the camera, were blurry or duplicates) so I have nothing to regret.
By throwing away something that others may think borders on the sacrilegious, I gave future me — the one that was about to travel indefinitely — a fighting chance to remain firmly in the future, not languishing in the past.
You don’t have to go as extreme as me. But it’s worth remembering - future you is more important than past you. Don’t let your stuff keep you stuck in that past.
Minimalism is buying time rather than stuff
I have a friend who wants to put his two kids through private education. He already has the 6-bedroom house with hot tub, the 3 cars, and the splashy vacations.
He also works every hour of the day in order to pay for it all.
He chooses stuff over time.
But what if he chose time instead of stuff? What if he chose to spend evenings with his children instead working for them to attend a fancy private school? What if he downsized his home to something more modest, freeing up a sizeable chunk of money? What if he decided two cars was enough and he doesn’t need the “roadster for the weekends?”
We live in a society that by and large chooses things over experiences, stuff over time. But the more stuff we buy, the less money we have. The less money we have, the more we need to work.
Minimalism flips that on its head.
With minimalism, the less stuff we buy, the more money we have, thus the less we need to work. In a transactional society - as is the one we live in - the theory is as simple as that.
Decluttering is a good place to start
Decluttering is, for sure, a key tenet of Minimalism. And it’s not a one-time thing. My first big clear out was nearly a decade ago but I’m still finding things to jettison every single week - even though I live out of a suitcase.
Stuff enters your life at an alarming rate. People will give you things because they don’t understand that you don’t need anything. You will buy something that was simply not required.
Decluttering is a habit, and an important one. Less stuff:
Reduces the stress hormone cortisol.
Makes you focus.
Increases self esteem.
Makes you sleep better.
This is why minimalists are fanatical about decluttering. Not because they want to sit in a room with a singular chair in the corner, but because they know the incredible advantages that comes with a cleaner, calmer home.
Minimalism is not KonMari
There’s a scene in the always-relevant Gilmore Girls where the matriarch Emily sits in her near-empty home after Kon-Mari-ing the crap out of it and says:
Nothing sparked joy so I threw everything away.
Whilst I have respect for Marie Kondo, I don’t believe that minimalism = KonMari because the reason to throw away an item - or not - stems from much more than one simplistic, joyful emotion.
Here’s something I wrote about this last year:
The reality is that the method is binary and yet again feeds into the rhetoric that minimalism and simple living is only about decluttering. It also relies heavily on someone’s “gut” feeling and their ability to decipher their feelings in just a few seconds. There is little intentionality to the process and thus people who Marie Kondo their life may well find themselves re-buying exactly what they threw away in the first place.
If many items bring you joy, you’ll still have clutter, you’ll still have to spend your days tidying and finding space in your home for trinkets. You’ll still have the physical, and mental clutter.
KonMari can be useful. But it’s not a synonym for minimalism.
Minimalism is not deprivation
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Minimalism isn’t deprivation — it’s prioritization.
For fear of repeating myself, read this once you’re finished here.
Minimalism is only one part of the puzzle
As anyone who has followed me for a while will know, I prefer to look at minimalism as a piece of the simple living puzzle. I define myself less as a minimalist, and more as a lover of a simple life purely because that definition is more all-encompassing than just focusing on the design aesthetic of a house or wardrobe.
A simple life is about cutting out the noise of life. It’s about making space in your head and your life as much as it is about reclaiming physical space in your home.
As I always say, that could mean living with 100, or 10,000 items . How many is entirely up to you.
2 of my latest Medium articles (paywall free)
2 of the best pieces of content I consumed this week
Film: The Menu (HBO) - This is one of the most well observed films based in fine dining I’ve ever seen. From the diners (the city boys, the annoying know-it-all foodie, the regulars who don’t care about the food) to the cooks, to the social commentary on the rockstar chef, it was superb from start to finish.
Article: The Business of Lost Things - “In the course of your life, you’ll spend roughly six solid months looking for missing objects; here in the United States, that translates to, collectively, some fifty-four million hours spent searching a day. And there’s the associated loss of money: in the U.S. in 2011, thirty billion dollars on misplaced cell phones alone.” And that’s not counting all the time we spend trying to replace those things we lost but know we can never find again.”
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And I loved the piece on waiters. As a former flight attendant, oh, man, people can be awful. But there were also soooo many kind passengers. One day as I was picking up mean trays after the service, I slipped and dropped six trays of orange chicken on this woman -- wearing a lovely white dress.
I felt horrible. She was covered in orange goo and her dress was ruined but she was soooooo kind about it.
I'd rather remember her than the douchebags...
We came to minimalism by accident when we became digital nomads. When you live out of a backpack you have no choice. And we love it.