A minimal reflection

Throughout the years that I’ve been living a more minimalist life, I have learned to see things differently. 

Purchases, purchasing, and possessions have slowly demystified and detangled themselves for me. 

And I can see that the shroud of happiness or fulfillment that I was sure my next new thing was wrapped in, was merely a figment of lost, desperate hope. 

The things I coveted were mere decoys designed to take my money, and confuse me. And that they did. 

But after years of thought on, and refrain from buying and acquiring with reckless abandon, I can see things differently now. 

I have come to see that my actual happiness comes from living, loving, losing, suffering, succeeding and believing, each one just as necessary and powerful as the other.  

I do get lost from time to time. I see a product or an item and imagine how completely I need it, so that I can become more of myself, so that I can step into my new version with grace and pride. 

But always, as I rest between the urges, I find ‘myself’ in that silence in between. Not in new things.

And even if I do end up ultimately purchasing whatever it was that pulled my soft ease into a harsh little aggravated knot - in the breathing time, I reconnect with myself and the truth of what matters to me now. 

I see clearly once again, that things do not hold the power of dictating who I am or what is amazing about me. 

Minimalism is a journey. It is growing and flowing every day, and I feel like a lost beginner some days, like I’ve learned nothing and that I am as materialistic and desperate as I was in my most confused and tormented moments and phases.

But every time I get uncomfortable, I step back into myself. I breathe with and through the space, and I remind myself that the world, nature, relationships, and art are where me and my own contentment, ease and productive journeys live. And I step towards those things.

Minimalism is breathtaking, and I am so glad to be going on this journey with you.

-Lyndsay