Unfortunately, I chose a very different path. It was a life-changing experience, and for several years, everything I owned fit neatly into a backpack … so one would assume that this was when my life as a minimalist began. I had no idea what I was doing, but I ended up travelling around the world for several years, eventually moving to Australia. At 22, I sold almost everything I owned and bought a one-way plane ticket to London. To make a very long story short, he inspired me to travel too. I had no idea that travel was a possibility for young people like me … but now, ideas were racing through my mind. He told me all about his travels around the world: exploring European cities, hiking in South America, and lazing on Thai beaches. I had a random conversation with an overseas student at a restaurant where I was working. Then one day, a chance encounter changed my life. I had very few friends and almost no social life my only real joy in life was shopping. Now I was working 70+ hours a week in addition to my full-time course load. Of course, this meant I needed two jobs to afford it all. I then went on a shopping spree, maxing out my credit cards to furnish my new home. I refused student housing, scoffed my head at the idea of living with roommates and instead, signed a lease on a tiny studio apartment on the edge of town.
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I moved to a new city for college and stubbornly decided that I wouldn’t live like a student. When I turned 18, I doubled down on my existing lifestyle. I was on my way to becoming a full-blown shopaholic and workaholic. I was still a few years away from adulthood, but the seeds were planted. I was constantly exhausted, and I developed the dangerous mindset of believing that I deserved stuff as a reward for all my hard work. I worked nearly 40 hours a week while attending high school full-time. Hard work was normal in my family, and by the time I was sixteen, I had a second job at a local pizza parlour. My grandparents owned a Chinese restaurant, and I can’t even remember when I officially started working because it was simply part of my childhood. However, unlike most of the teenagers I knew, I worked all the time. I was an awkward Asian child in a predominantly white town, and buying trendy clothes from the local mall helped me feel like I fit in (which at the time was what I wanted more than anything else in the world). (For some perspective, when I was a ten-year-old Girl Scout, we actually went camping inside the local shopping mall! We sang Kumbaya in the food court and then went shopping all night.)Īlso, like many teenagers, I lacked self-confidence. I wasn’t raised to be particularly materialistic, but I grew up in middle-class America, and I think it was hard not to be in that environment. I have always, always had a lot of stuff. Related Post: What Is Minimalism + Why Is Everyone Talking About It A Tale of Too Much Stuff Overall, the purpose of a minimalist life is to have more of what matters and less of what doesn’t. This often refers to physical stuff, but it can also refer to people, tasks, or even ideas. I define a minimalist as someone who chooses to be intentional with what they allow in their life. Instead, my definition of minimalism is rooted in intentionality and alignment.
#MINIMALIST LIFESTYLE HOW TO#
How to Live With Less + Write Your Own Minimalist Storyīefore we get started, I just want to clarify what a minimalist is because I think there are some common misconceptions.Ĭontrary to popular belief, minimalism is not about living life with as few possessions as possible-or at least, this isn’t the belief I subscribe to.What Does Life As a Minimalist Look Like?.If you’d like to learn more about living with less, then here is the complete story of my minimalist life. As you’ll soon see, it was a long and often painful journey that required learning and unlearning a lifetime of beliefs about myself and my place in the world. Having said that, minimalism didn’t come easy for me.
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![minimalist lifestyle minimalist lifestyle](https://acrazyfamily.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/minimalist-lifestyle.jpg)
It was such a transformative experience that I decided to start writing a minimalist blog (this one!). Instead, I feel a deep sense of freedom and ease that I didn’t believe was possible for many years. I no longer live in a constant state of exhaustion and overwhelm. Over the past decade, I have completely transformed my life. In fact, by my twenties, I was a full-blown shopaholic and workaholic- about as far from a minimalist lifestyle as you could get!īut here I am, living proof that change is possible. Growing up, I would never have imagined that I’d one day be talking about my life as a minimalist because, at the time, the idea of choosing to live with less was completely foreign to me.