I started my minimalism journey the year after I started my zero waste journey. I had already watched the Netflix documentary Minimalism and started to slowly review all the things I had in my room. I started seeing a lot of things that doesn’t make sense anymore for working woman in her late 20s, of course I had to keep my Harry Potter collection but I had a lot of other items that needed to go, so I let them go. After several rounds of categorically purging different items I found that I had enough floor space in my room for a trampoline on top of my existing yoga mat space.
Cleaning out my room was so liberating that I thought about what other areas I could downsize. That was when I realized, after listening to a Minimalist podcast, that you could let go of non physical items as well. It turns out that minimalism can also mean making use of our resources in a way that adds value to our lives, not wasting it on things that don’t. That being said, some other things that I think are worth downsizing are email subscriptions, social media friends and following, Netflix watch list, and social meetings.
First, I went on Facebook with a purpose and checked out all the friends I had on my list. Most of them were people I went to school with and added them as friends due to group work so by the time I went on a mission to unfriend people I no longer have the need to keep in touch with those acquaintances. The reality is that a huge portion of our Facebook friends aren’t really friends we don’t meet them in social meetings and therefore have no real need to stay in touch. I even unfriended some family members that live far away and some that I want nothing to do with because, let’s be honest, we all have those people in our lives and we can choose to not have them in our lives if they’re not really helping us be a better version of ourselves, it’s our choice.
My next social media platform downsizing attack was on Instagram and I had so much emotions going through me when I started unfollowing accounts. I felt sad at first then relieved and then happy. I realized that I followed a lot of accounts because I wanted the same things that they were posting but did not necessarily reflect their reality, so I unfollowed those. I even followed some people just because I used to know them but now don’t really meet anymore, similar to those Facebook acquaintances. I did not need anyone saying that what I have right now is not enough. I also did not open my Twitter account for more than a year because I didn’t see the value of it at the time and I’m now unfollowing everyone and just following a few news agencies and a few people whose opinions I value.
I unsubscribed to email subscriptions that I had ten years ago. A lot of them were for health, wellness, and running sites and by now I already have enough knowledge about those topics that if I had a question I would simply look it up and I’d get the answers I needed. The barrage of emails from my several email accounts that I kept for high school, university, and then work can be stressful if I see my inbox having two-digit number of unread messages that I would just delete all unread messages. I also learned to say no to social gatherings because I only have a limited amount of time in a day and since I get to choose who I spend that with I’d rather spend that time doing things or being with people who add value. That way I am fully present with whatever I am doing instead of thinking about other things while doing one thing. Multitasking is not efficiency its just lazy procrastination.
I still have a lot of clutter to delete from my life and physical items are just a part of that. This is a journey that will continue on as I progress in life but it’s a journey that has made me less stressed and more calm because now I get to focus on things that really matter to me instead of constantly be stressed about things that I don’t really need to be thinking about. I will continue to declutter and downsize as long as I see things or people around me that don’t add good quality value I hope everyone does this too!
The Naturale Yogi 