Friday, May 27, 2011

Minimalism Defined

Over the last few months I have read a lot about minimalism. I had heard the term before, but little did I know how much it described the person I aim to be until recently. I believe it is a term that will continue to define me more and more in my future.

To me, minimalism is not doing without, but more about returning to a simpler life. A life that respects the environment, one that makes more room for family time and personal connections, one that focuses on the FACT that stuff does not make you happy (and many times can distract you from true happiness) and most importantly, a life that revolves around being the change I want to see in the world. Modeling to my son on a daily basis these values is what ultimately drives me.

But minimalism has so many facets and how it relates to my life I am still defining. I think I was a minimalist way before I knew a term. I have always said that I wished I had lived in the prairie times when they got by with so little, spent so much time together, worked harder than any of us can imagine, and appreciated so much more (at least that is the way it seems to me).

So my next few posts will be about my journey through this, my view of what this could mean for our world if more people embraced it, and simply why it is so important to me.

I hope you will share your insights and ways in which you may embrace this even if it is just one area of your life that it applies. I want all the ideas I can get.

1 comment:

  1. I agree with what you're saying. I have always thought what you said about early prairie life and wanted to go back to when families were still families and lived near each other, everyone worked for what they had, and everyone had less. People (children especially) spent their time outside and not in front of the tv.

    My husband and I live a simple life style. We have no tv, we cook everything from scratch, we garden, we enjoy the outdoors without motored vehicles. We plan to homestead some day; build our own house and live off the land.

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