Recently I became extremely frustrated by the amount of clothes I have managed to accumulate.
I'm the kind of person who wears the same clothes over and over again and so seeing unloved garments spilling out of my wardrobe and drawers seemed completely unnecessary.
I pressed play on a YouTube playlist about minimalism and started to ruthlessly make piles of unwanted clothes on my bedroom floor. After struggling to fit all of my clothes in my wardrobe for a few months I could finally fit everything on the rails and even had hangers to spare! Looking at my bedroom in it's clean and clutter free state was so satisfying and I realised I want to have this feeling as I enter every single room of my house.
I sat down with a well deserved cup of tea and found a TEDx Talks on minimalism.
I'm obsessed with interior design and I've always pictured my adult home as a beautiful, clinical white space with no visible clutter, but yet I am an adult and my vision wasn't reality. I'm sure I'm not the only one that puts things off and imagines this perfect future where your life and your home will finally be what you've always wanted.
I decided in that moment that I needed to take control of not only my home but my life and create what I really want rather than putting it off like I have in the past.
I started small, walking through my house and picking up any nik naks that I didn't particularly want or need. Broken mugs, multiple sets of coloured pencils, ornaments that don't match the decor, it's strange how I've held on to objects over the years without ever thinking why. I promptly began to bin anything that was broken and gather the unwanted things for a trip to the charity shop.
Finally I was able to breathe a sigh of relief. It's true that a home full of clutter will inevitably clutter your mind. Although I didn't realise it at the time, I can now feel the difference. Calming the chaos was so satisfying that I managed to tackle the whole house in less than a week. My guess is that we've managed to cull over half of our possessions and I plan on throwing more and more.
In most aspects I completely boycott the mainstream way of life and so it makes sense for me to reject consumerism and to have fewer material things.
We are programmed to want to spend our money, to buy new clothes, new phones, new cars, to keep on spending until we have none of our wages left. People are competitive with our stuff, we want more stuff and we want better stuff than everyone else. Luckily I've never been interested in spending all of my money on new things, but yet I was keeping hold of things that I had no interest in using anymore, so what was the point?
Now when I decide to go shopping I have a few rules...
1. Do I need this/ will this benefit my life?
2. Will this be timeless? Mainly relevant to home ware and clothes, will I still love this in a few years or is it just a fleeting trend?
3. Would I still buy this if it cost three times the amount? (Since often we buy things purely because we consider them "a bargain").
I'm excited to finish off the process and I can't wait to see how much money I save without mindlessly spending. Let me know if you have tried minimalism or if you know of any minimalist YouTubers that I can get inspiration from!
Thanks for reading
Instagram @wolvesandflames
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