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Practicing the Art of Minimalism

Being locked inside the house...all alone...for more than fifteen days now...often brings rollercoaster rides of several emotions and thoughts. A lot of extra time to ponder over my own life...my own life's choices and decisions.

Sitting at home and trying to pick up a new hobby or lifestyle, a few days back I started focusing on the art of minimalism. If you are new to the concept, the minimalist lifestyle is about living with only the things you need. Minimalists are free from the desire to buy and accumulate more. Instead, they find happiness in relationships and experiences. There is an amazing blog around this - https://www.becomingminimalist.com/5-years-of-better/.

After reading about it, watching a few youtube videos and documentaries, I started looking through everything I own at present and making a list of everything that I don't really need. I started pulling out clothes that I have not worn in months, pulling out shoes that I have not worn in years, books that I have finished reading and will probably never pick again. Thankfully I don't live in a big house or have too much furniture, to begin with, so a lot of that sorting was not needed. Next came the part of planning on how I could discard these extra things that I own. Well, once the quarantine season is over, I now have a list of places and people who could use those things that I have been collecting in my house without really having much need for them. This also made me think around my next shopping plans. Now, this is where the lifestyle change needs to kick in. From shopping at every Myntra or Amazon sale to shopping only when I really can't do without something...that's the switch I need to consciously make.

Replacing a traditional work-table in a minimalistic architectural way 
The art of minimalistic living sounds simple at a superficial level. The benefits also sound promising. But trying to practically implement this lifestyle is not easy. You want to know what the biggest challenge in this practice is? Well...its the society we live in, its the people we go out with, the people we work with. If a decently paid employee of a multinational organization doesn't have a couch at her home when she welcomes guests or fancy glasses to serve the wine in, well...your friends and colleagues are not going to like you a lot. Your family also might not approve of you too much. I can tell this from experience. It is now that I have started making a conscious effort towards minimalistic living, but I have always liked to stay at a smaller space, with fewer furniture....compared to what the social norms generally have been for someone of my social status. I have had incidences where a house party planned at my place had been moved to a different venue because...I was told that my house was too small for 4-5 people to be able to comfortably accommodate themselves. Well, being a good host generally, the statement had hurt me real bad that day. This had happened a few months back. Thinking back to that incident today and now that minimalism is a conscious practice for me, I realize that I will have to make a lot of choices...between minimalistic living and social approval.

I have to make those choices of whether I want to have a new dress for every party that I attend...or do I want a simpler and happier lifestyle with minimal clothes that are basic requirements. Well, being inside the house for the last 15+ days, I have realized that I can literally survive with just 5 pairs of clothes. I am not saying I will go that far immediately...but maybe with time, that is where I would like to head towards. These choices are tricky. And I am not at that place yet where I can tell you if all the benefits, that these articles and movies about minimalism are claiming, are true or not. All I know is that I have lived life in a certain way for a really long time. And I have recently heard about a different route that also exists...where the terrain is different from the road that I have taken so far...but being of the inquisitive nature that I am, I am willing to travel that road too for a while before choosing which road I would like to take for the remaining of life's journey.

While I am trying to put minimalism into practice every day, I am also starting to spend some time trying to find my Ikigai...my reason to jump out of the bed each morning. Hopefully, I will share a blog with more details on this topic soon. 
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