MindThe Beginner

It seems minimalism is getting more popular every day. Now in my about page it states that I’m a minimalist, however I’m still working on the 100 items challenge I’ve written about all those weeks ago. It’s much harder than it would seem and I think this is going to take some more time.  But why do I want to go on with this challenge and succeed? It’s because I believe in it and in the power of minimalism.

A closer look

Let’s have another look at the basics of minimalism and it’s power. To me minimalism is having exactly those things you need in life and nothing more. The things you do have are of such quality that you don’t need redundancies and all those thing do exactly what they are supposed to, nothing more, nothing less.

Everything is designed with pure functionality in thought. Aesthetics come in second.

No I’m not saying that comfort and fun should be thrown out the window just because you want to be a minimalist, far from it! It’s inherent to minimalism as I understand it to have the best *whatever you need* you can find and can afford. Keep in mind however that up to a certain amount of money you are paying for function, after that it’s all about the looks, the name or whatever else is on there.

The minimalist’s Ferrari

Take a Ferrari for instance. Totally useless if you ask me. Sure, it’s a great car, but to me a car is a means of transportation. A car needs to get me from A to B safely and comfortably while having enough room in the trunk to haul whatever I need hauling. Preferably without costing me to much gas. A Toyota Prius could do all that, right? If I don’t have much stuff to haul (minimalists generally don’t have a lot of stuff) I could even choose to drive a Smart. What can a Ferrari do that a Smart can’t? It much much faster and it gets you noticed, it’s a status symbol…. it’s something little boys need to feel secure and feel like they are something. And that’s what you pay for, image.

Image isn’t functionality and so a Ferrari is useless. I’d rather spend the more than 100k I save by driving a Smart or Prius and do other fun things with all that money. (Maybe rent a Ferrari for a day.)

Is image everyhting or nothing?

This way of thinking applies to just about everything with a brand name on it. What can Nike shoes do for you that regular non-brand shoes can’t? Image. A Louis Vuitton bag? Again it’s image. Something you need to belong to a certain tribe.

Now it’s here that people who have this stuff start to protest, telling you that you probably don’t have the money to buy these things and that you are just jealous.

But let’s turn that one around. How would you feel about living a life where you need to wear certain brands, drive a certain type of car and have the latest gadgets just because they are the latest. I bet you it would feel totally fake. Not to mention the possible financial problems that come from it. I’ll let you in on a secret, most of the people who wear these brands don’t have the amount of money they try to fool other people into thinking they have. It’s part of the image they are trying to have. To them however, the image is so important that they spend all their money on it.

To cut things short: minimalism saves you a hell of a lot of money. You can easily live below your means. Living well below your means offers you one of two options:

1. You can reach Financial Independence within your lifetime.
2. You can afford not to work for months every year

Most people will respond to the idea of living below their means in one of two ways. Either they’ll say “I know, I know I should be saving more,” or they’ll scoff “how can I live below my means? I’m just scraping by already.” – Freepersuits.com

This quote shows exactly where things go wrong for “image” people: “I’m just scraping by already”. It’s probably because of all stuff the think they need to maintain the image.

I’ll stop the ranting now like I’m a poor little kid who hasn’t got the money it takes to join the tribe and so starts kicking against it and tell you what minimalism is in what I believe is the shortest possible definition. I already gave it away in the title of this post but here it is again in all it’s glory:

Minimalism = Simplicity = Freedom

Nothing more, nothing less

If you liked this article, please share it on del.icio.us, StumbleUpon or Digg. I’d appreciate it. You might also want to subscribe to my RSS feed.