Yesterday, I posted a list of everything I own. This post is to explain why I only live with a backpack and very few possessions.
I’ve been experimenting with minimalism for around 6 months now. In 2011, I left university to make a serious attempt at forging a location independent lifestyle.
I decided to delete the stagnation from my life and regather the remnants of shattered entrepreneurial dreams that had always been overshadowed by conforming to a more traditional path in life.
Moving out of college and immediately starting to travel meant I never accumulated a house full of possessions, which made the initial transition much easier than most others.
After living out of a backpack for over a month while traveling, it was a liberating feeling to finally be living with literally nothing but a laptop and a few pieces of clothing. Upon returning to Australia for a few months over summer, I started being more ruthless with what I owned. I got rid of my car and nearly every other possession that didn’t fit into a backpack. I wanted to leave Australia a few months after returning, with nothing left back home. Only owning what I carried on my back.
While I accumulated a bit of gear for the documentary I’m filming, I’m about to set out travelling again this year fitting everything into the same backpack.
But minimalism for me goes much further than the possessions I carry with me. Minimalism is much more than getting excited after watching Fight Club or Into The Wild and moulding yourself into a Tyler Durden/Alex Supertramp-like character. It’s much more than just a topic I decided to write about because a lot of other bloggers have had success in this niche.
It’s hard to explain to non-minimalists, but as soon as you start to eliminate possessions, you begin to think differently as a result of the mindset cultivated by freeing yourself from meaningless consumption.
Minimalism for me is about eliminating anything that doesn’t add value to my life, whether it be possessions, people, obligations or projects I’m working on. It’s evolved a great deal since shoving a few things in a backpack and travelling overseas.
Once I removed possessions that didn’t add value to my life, I started to do the same with information. I deleted Facebook as it wasn’t adding value to my life anymore. I deleted every single TV show and movie from my external hard drive as they were only distractions from the life I was trying to cultivate.
I now watch very little television. I avoid being subjected to meaningless advertisements trying to convince me to buy meaningless products as much as I can. I read only a few blogs that add value to my life. I read books that interest me regularly. And I eliminate anything else that doesn’t add value to my life. Consuming only relevant information helps me think clearer and produce better quality work.
As a result I have more time to create, and the work that I do create is better quality. With food, if you eat poor quality food, your physical body will suffer. The same is true for media consumption. Fill your head with information that doesn’t add value to your life, your thoughts and mental output will suffer.
When trying to forge a lifestyle around location independence, living with few possessions is a natural fit. I’m living off savings so I’d rather spend the limited money I have on traveling and cultivating amazing experiences than buying useless crap.
When trying to forge a life of nonconformity, the rejection of the status-quo is also a natural fit. I’m not working at a job I hate and buying useless shit I don’t need. I don’t own a house and I’m not going down the path of filling it with useless shit. Minimalism is the conscious rejection of these things.
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When I severed my tie to formal education, for me it was severing a tie with a life of unfulfillment. Rather than going down the path of getting a soul sucking corporate job, then accumulating a whole heap of material possessions to feel good about the shitty decisions I made in life, I made a preemptive strike against the future self I was evolving into.
Severing my tie was about realising I was living an unremarkable life. It was about burning my bridges to adopt something different. Something more fulfilling. I want to live a lifestyle where I’m cultivating amazing experiences rather than collecting meaningless possessions, job titles and educational qualifications.
I want to become a self-sufficient writer, an entrepreneur, an adventurer. I’d rather go on a journey, live overseas, learn new languages, live a nomadic lifestyle than pour the equivalent amount of money into a qualification, a house or a car.
Severing my tie was the rejection of creating location dependent income streams, and cultivating location independent income streams. It was about learning to write better, to communicate better, to learn new skills, learn new languages and have amazing experiences in the process.
It was about cultivating an experienced based resume, rather than a resume consisting of bullshit words attempting to differentiate my unremarkable educational qualifications from the masses. Instead, I’m creating a body of work. I’m creating a resume based on what I’ve done rather than how I’ve conformed.
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Rather than numbing myself completing a university degree, numbing myself with a corporate job and numbing myself with meaningless consumerism, I want to live.
The less I numb myself by adding possessions, obligations, meaningless information and unfulfilling experiences, the more I can really live. The less I numb myself, the better my ability to cultivate a lifestyle that I actually want to live.
I don’t want to perpetually consume, produce, consume, produce, consume, produce. I just want to create. I want to live. I want to feel.
I don’t want to cultivate a false sense of security, a mediocre job title or lifestyle I don’t want to live. I just want freedom.
I don’t want to participate in a society filled with broken promises and shattered dreams. I want to inspire others to embrace a different approach to living, an approach where they can actually take action toward their dreams.
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Anyone can use minimalism to remove stagnation from their life.
The first step is always throwing out possessions. Once you realize minimalism goes further than just counting possessions, you open yourself up to new ways of approaching every area of your life. Realising you have everything you need in order to survive is minimalism at it’s most basic understanding.
I know that I only need my 11″ macbook air, my SLR camera and a few accessories, and a few pieces of clothing to forge my new lifestyle, but I still have much to learn from experiments with minimalism.
Once you realize that minimalism isn’t about depravation, you can evolve. If I took minimalism at face value, I wouldn’t have upgraded my camera gear for the documentary I’m filming. Minimalism isn’t about depriving yourself. It’s not about depriving yourself of potentially awesome experiences and immensely fulfilling projects. It’s about embracing them.
I don’t require or even desire anymore a permanent location to call home, a house full of possessions, a car or irrelevant university degree. I’m not dependent on any of these things to feel good about myself. I’m not dependent on any of these things to feel safe or comfortable. And I’m not dependent on others opinions to validate my life decisions.
It might sound awesome when someone says they are surviving with only the essentials and travelling the world with only a small backpack. But it’s the mindset. It’s always been the mindset.
It’s about choosing what stays in my life. It’s about evolving with the least amount of resistance possible. It’s about questioning everything in my life: is it helping or hindering my progress to forge my ideal lifestyle? If it’s not, it’s eliminated with no regrets.
Minimalism, to me, is staying in sync with who I really am and what I am striving to create. It’s never about what I must do, what I must have, what I must buy, what I must be. I only need to be myself.
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