Only Do This If You Want To Be Happy!

in #life7 years ago

The #1 Thing I've Started Doing More and More that has made me happier and happier in the past 3 years is Minimalising.

Watch the 1 minute video or read the blog, or even better: do both!

Important:

The examples and simple explanation I use in this post is a very basic introduction. In order to apply minimalism in a way that it is effective we need to dive in deep. I could write a book about it, and maybe one day I well.

What Is Minimalism?

To be honest I don't really like the word. I see it as Maximalising fun and values, rather than getting rid of stuff , but hey I didn't come up with it so I don't get to name it. I do get to do it however. So see this minimalism as a 'less is more' kind of philosophy. Whenever you look up minimalism you will find out that people mainly refer to stuff, physical things that are to be minimalised. I don't really think that is the whole deal though. So let's walk through it:

Physical Things

So the first thing to minimalise on is stuff. Basically the idea is that we all possess a lot of things that we hardly ever use, or wouldn't have to use if we use other things more efficiently. A nice example might be an 'apple-cutter' yes we can cut a whole apple in 8 slices with one motion which is nice, but with a knife it takes 2 seconds longer, yet we don't have to spend $10 on a device that we only use to cut apples. Also and this is more important, we don't have that device laying around in the kitchen for no reason like 99% of the time.

By getting rid of these unnecessary things we create 'space' in our lives and mind , and literally space in our house. It also means we spend less money on stuff we don't really need and we don't have to worry about things breaking down as much. Another step could be to be less up-tight about other people using our things. At the end of the day, it's just stuff.

Mental Things

Basically I don't want to be occupied with useless thoughts or feelings for that matter. When you're not used to running your own brain it is possible that it is being occupied by a ton of annoying, hurtful, or simply inefficient thoughts that don't really help you get where you want to get in life. My minimalising these thoughts manually, and later on automatically as a habit, you will feel a lot more happy in life.

People

Another thing to minimalise on is people. Some of our relationships, friendships or even family members might not be as relevant or useful today as they were in the past. You may just catch up with old friends because it is a habit, or because 'that's what friends do' yet you may have grown apart. I can almost 100% guarantee that there is a person in your life who you simply shouldn't spending time with anymore because it doesn't make any sense, yet you do it because you're used to it, or feel you cannot tell them that, it's over.

Activities

Another thing you can minimalise on is activities. My favourite example: family birthdays. Bleh I just don't like sitting around all day with people I hardly know and are 30 years older than me. I would much rather spend my time somewhere else actually adding value to someone's life because let's honest here. You hardly ever get time to talk to the birthday boy or girl, you don't really care about the other people and everybody is just pretending to have fun, whilst eating way more cake than they should. So pick your activities carefully you only get to spend your time once.

Conclusion

By 'cutting out' the stuff that's not important to us, or that simply doesn't add value to our lives we get to be so much happier. It's like getting rid of weeds so that there is more space for the roots of our crops ;)

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to minimized is to maximized happiness

I just digested your post, i didn't know minimalism can be a good benefit to individuals, i have so much stuff on my room and every time i have new stuff, later on i'll get bored of it, and then buy new things that make me happy, now i realized that i've been slave from materialism, being contented and grateful is the cure from being sick from materialism.

Yes @cortexx, buying things can make you happy indeed, but keeping them when you don't use them will make you unhappy. Also, at some point you will find not-buying things will make you happy as well ;)

Nice, well done .. good tips
Great post from you
Thanks for sharing

Thanks @slimanepro :)

Nice, well done .. good tips
Great post from you
Thanks for sharing

Thanks @slimanepro ! Happy to see you out here as always :)

Interesting perspective. Cut down all physical and mental clutter to free up your life. I disagree about the family perspective, I like spending time with them because you have so few of them. But I totally agree we should only spend time with friends that add to our life. The apple cutter example was good too.

@jfitmisc hey if your family are people you enjoy spending time with, please by all means do so. Yet some people feel obligated to do so. They don't like their family, or related family members and spend a lot of time with them anyway. This I cannot recommend :)

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Thanks @transparencybot I hope to see you every day :) Displaying the amounts is useful to me and transparent to the people reading posts. I take great time and put in effort to create my posts so I don't worry about the judgement of my work, I'm sure you'll like it! :)

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OK, I think I'll do that because I want to be happy! =D

You have no idea how happy this can make you for real :) you should look something up about it or read my more extensive post and watch the video once I will have that up, probably in a few weeks :)

Nice and real story keep up the good work big thumbs up and a resteem from my side best of luck.@markdeheide

Thanks @ismailadeel I'm glad to hear you like my post. Have you started minimalising yourself already?

If I possess less then I can also see more, and I completely agree what you... that we need to have less things, because we are being forced into too many things what we not need .

thanks @foxkoit, it really feels like a weight has come off my shoulders since I possess less :)

You are welcome :)

@markdeheide thank you for the fresh insight on the topic, I've seen a lot of Instagrammers preaching minimalism but they only focus on the stuff part of it.

Mental - this is from a song, the singer said

People treat their heads like trash cans

i.e gulping down mainstream news.

The People part is so spot on, quality over quantity man.

Any activity that doesn't enrich us has less value hence it's disposable.

Thank you for writing this, enlightening as usual. Def. resteemed.

@micscrypt thanks! :) yeah just the physical stuff is not enough ;)

not even close, that's just the exterior.

I totally agree with you @markdeheide
This is what my family is doing and working and getting closer to our freedom and getting out of this rat race.
Great post

Thanks @joalvarez! :) Glad to hear you are working on this already, I find it so important! I hope your family will keep striving and creating more and more success :)