Minimalism Is About More Than Just the Stuff

As a child, I dreamed of living in a big house and driving a Corvette. Looking back, I now find my Corvette dream to be baffling. I find it funny that I had a dream car when I do not care about cars at all. Like, at all.

As I grew older and social media began to blossom, I found myself desiring make-up collections and skincare products (I was very into the beauty Youtube community). This again strikes me as funny because I’ve never particularly been into make-up. I’ve always had a mild interest in beauty, but it’s never been something I wanted to dedicate much time to.

As humans, I think we so easily fall into the trap of desiring what we view as desirable by other people. We want to fit in. Perhaps be admired. We want to be like people that we think are better than ourselves. As a young 20-something, I know I was very much trapped in this cycle. I saw people living lives that I thought were better than mine – beautiful women who seemed to have their lives together. A good first step to be like them was to like what they liked. And so began my habit of buying make-up and beauty products.

Luckily however, my make-up interest did not go too far. I did not collect much in the way of beauty products. No, my true kryptonite came when I discovered the booktube community.

I was suddenly introduced to a whole new world of books. So many book recommendations and hauls, and just so many books on shelves. Seeing all of these enormous, beautiful collections in people’s videos had me desiring a huge book collection of my own. As a book lover, it seemed to only make sense to want a personal library in my bedroom.

Fast forward a few years and I had accomplished my dream. I had an ever-growing book collection that I thought was filling me with joy. I was buying so many books I saw featured in videos. If a book had a beautiful cover, chances are I ordered it for my collection. Even after I began working in a library, I still continued buying, buying, buying.

Now, I’m not saying this was good or bad. This is simply what I was doing. However, amidst all of this purchasing I wasn’t reading much. Here I was surrounded by books, yet I could easily go months without feeling compelled to read any of them. And that bothered me. Slowly I began to realize that perhaps owning all of these books was actually a source of stress and not a source of joy. Perhaps something that other people love having is not something I truly desired.

My books had become a burden. I felt obligated to read what I owned even if I had lost interest. Getting rid of books didn’t feel like an option – this whole book collection was what I was supposed to want, right? It’s also true that my book collection felt like an extension of myself. I identified as a reader and book lover, so I had the books to prove it. Getting rid of them meant getting rid of a part of myself.

So that is the place I was stuck in when I finally discovered The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. From what I can remember, this book is where I really began my minimalism journey. Marie Kondo helped me see that I was not tied to my books. If my books were not bringing joy to my life then I was allowed to get rid of them. And honestly, that realization, no matter how obvious or silly this may sound, was such a relief.

When I accepted that I am not my stuff, it was like a burden had been lifted from me. Just because I bought something did not mean that I was obligated to keep it forever. Even though it hurt slightly because of all the money I had spent, purging my books gave me a peace of mind that I hadn’t experienced in a long time.

The books, however, were just the catalyst into my minimalism journey.

I began to purge many things, and I dove deeper into the whole minimalism movement. The further I explored minimalism the more I realized that it was about more than just the stuff. Minimalism of course helped change my relationship with stuff, but it also led me to change my relationship with myself and the world around me.

The things I’d dreamed of before, like the big house, became unimportant to me. I realized I hadn’t really wanted those things just for me; I had wanted those things to create a version of myself that I thought was impressive. Minimalism is what woke me up to the fact that I was living for external validation. What other people thought of my life was too important to me, and that needed to change.

Now, that’s not to say I still don’t struggle with wanting stuff. And I still have tendencies to want to like things just because I think it’ll make me more interesting. I think that is just part of being human. It’s a lifelong journey that I’ll continue to work on. But I am grateful to minimalism for giving me the space to view the world in a different way, and for presenting me with the fact that the meaning of life is not found in a store.

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About the Author: Danielle Massett is a writer, reader, and aspiring knitter living in the Midwest. She loves exploring what it means to live a meaningful life. Read more from Danielle here.