Me & Minimalism

My tryst with minimalsim

Minimalism is an ideology of interest to me. So far, I have been involved in minimalism like I was involved in university courses. I have been consuming theoritical knowledge without any hands-on practice. This year I am intending to practice a little bit of minimalism and see how it will enhance or degrade my life.

How I got exposure to minimalism

I want to start by giving a brief history of how I got introduced to this concept. It was a lean year at work some years ago and did not have much on my plate to execute. Out of boredom, I started exploring some articles online and landed at TheDumbLittleMan website. I don’t know how it is now, but few years back it used to be the go to site for any life improvement type of articles.

The site had a lot of reference to the concept of Zen which I really liked. It seemed very practical to me. From there I started exploring more about Zen, Buddhism, meditation, Yin and Yang and concept of letting go. I landed at a wesbite, Good Life Zen, for these information and for tit bits about improving the soul. (What a sucker for self improvement!). Up to this point, it was more of a fly on the wall type reading. I just browsed to see what is there.

From GoodLifeZen, I landed at Zenhabits by Leo Babuta. This is when I started getting more information and clarity. Also, this is where I heard the term Minimalism for the first time. This kind of appealed to me. So, I continued searching and landed at The Minimalists and then the videos on minimalism by The Minimalists and Joshua Becker. Then I continued exploring this concept through Marie Kondo and Fumio Sasaki as Japanese are generally accredited for practicing minimalism as a way of life.

And in the recent times, due to my search history, Google, who is playing Bruce Almighty these days, automatically suggested a lot of YouTubers who make videos on minimalism. There are good ones and many bad ones. But one guy who stands out to me is Matt D’Avella. I like the way he produces and edits the content and the quality of messages.

So, this is where I am in my relationship with Minimalism. This was quite a longer intro than I had expected. I will spare you from the trouble and split this into multiple posts. In the next post, I am intending to explain my limited understanding of minimalism. Hopefully.

What comes to your mind when you hear the word Minimalism?

Update: You can read the Part 2 where I try to explain the concept as I understand here: What us Minimalism and what is not?