Sooner or later, it seems, every aspiring minimalist asks themselves the question, “Why am I doing this?”
Yet again, Miss Minimalist has created a post that really got me thinking.
It can be easy to confuse what minimalism is and what minimalism can help you achieve. Some people want a minimalist environment or lifestyle so that they can be more productive and meet the goals they have set for themselves. This is great, and I’m hoping that minimalism will do the same for me, to a certain extent. But I am also hoping that by pursuing minimalism I will be able to clear away the extraneous clutter, commitments, and obligations that weigh on me. I find that if I set too many goals for myself, even if they are things I want to accomplish and look forward to doing, I feel trapped and obligated.
What if we look at minimalism as a rebirth of sorts? A way to start over with a clean slate. Do you ever catch yourself thinking, “If I knew then what I know now…?” If we distill our lives down to their minimalist essence, we can start over knowing what we know now.
Rather than setting goals and thinking about how your minimalist lifestyle will help you accomplish them, try getting to that place of minimalism first and THEN thinking about what you want to achieve. It may not be what you want now, and why clutter up your mind along the way?