For us, Minimalism is not about how simple and basic a house can look. It is beyond the house design. It is the concept of our mind. We have been ‘Maximalist’ for quite a while. We are reaching the point when enough is enough. Messy life and time-wasted are part of not being minimalist. Thus creates problems over problems. And we know that problem outshines our life.
1. The Never Ending Circle
Accumulated stuff either unused or overload belongings, both are taking over our precious space. When we were just two, –before Axelle was born–, this was not really a problem. We enjoyed shopping from time to time. And I was happy to collect Mammoth. But shortly, once we have a little one, our belongings are piled up four times more! And it is difficult to stop it from growing. People keep giving baby gifts. Honestly, we are so thankful to receive such abundance gifts from friends and family.
But, Axelle’s stuff is so much more than ours both combined. Getting us more difficult to implement the concept of minimalism in our home. So much easier perhaps, if we don’t have any plan for another baby. So, we can pass all our baby stuff to another baby who may need it, instead of keeping it inside boxes.
2. Extra Unnecessary Schedule
Our life has been a hectic life between raising a baby and growing a business. We basically have no time to waste. Every minute is crucial for us. Yet, we have been spending part of our precious time looking for our belongings in between baby toys. Just call this Satanic Circle, where everyone can create one or be trapped inside it forever. Adding up extra time to look for something, to find the stuff we need, it is ridiculously unnecessary. Even more when we found the things that we haven’t touched for over 3 years. Do we really need to keep those unnecessary things that long?
Every object should have its own space. Each belonging should be respected. So, we don’t need to let our precious time to be wasted just to look for one thing we need for that moment.
3. Increase Greed and Desires
Greed and desires are not always good. Well, there is good greed and good desires, of course. I have increased my greed to succeed in the business so I can help other easily. This is a good one. It fuels me up. However, owning pieces of stuff exceeding the balanced normal sensor, for me, this is definitely bad greed and bad desires. Have you heard of ‘Bonker Closet‘ by the way? This is a concept where Greed and Desires do not fall under ‘good’ or ‘bad’, or ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. Because it involves highly professional management skill. They do it with full consent and organised their belongings in a very tidy manner.
I have no category where to put this Bonker Closet as a concept of life. I would be proud if I could just have a shell to home myself. Just like the snails. Even if I were a snail, I could still make a line of beauty products from my exotic ‘Snail Slime’. I would turn my mucus into cream, mask, and serum.
But one thing for sure, once we add our belongings, we increase hesitation to throw away stuff even if we no longer need them. Even more, when these belongings are pricey. It is human nature that we want to keep and protect our belongings ‘forever’. We trap for ourselves to fall into it. This is what I call above ‘The Never Ending Circle’. This is never about owning, this is about winning over our human greed and basic desires.
Samuel and I, we have committed to removing this hesitation of throwing or giving away our stuff as soon as possible. For now, this is still in our mind though. We plan to ‘Spring Clean’ this Spring. Wish us luck!
Image Credits: John