Every Monday I post Real Life Minimalists, a profile of one of my readers in their own words. If you’d like to participate, click here for details.
Today, I’m pleased to feature SimpleSophy. She tells us about her frustration with having too much stuff, and what finally inspired her to pursue a pared-down life. Read more about her experiences on her blog.
SimpleSophy writes:
“I have too much stuff!”
It’s a decadent ‘First World’ moan, but it’s no less real and burdensome for that. I cannot tell you how oppressed I became by all my stuff, and how much I began to long to be rid of it.
I wasn’t always hankering after a clutter-free life. Indeed, as a child I was an avid collector of anything and everything. I couldn’t go for a walk in the countryside without returning with my pockets bulging with pretty stones, pine cones, shells and even animal skulls and antlers. I set up a mini museum in my bedroom, with natural artefacts on one shelf and ethnographic objects (a motley collection of broken bits of china and souvenirs) on another. Each was labelled lovingly and displayed to best advantage in a pleasingly artistic arrangement, while all around the museum my clothes, toys and books were scattered in enormous, unsightly heaps on the floor. My mother despaired.
As a teenager I began to collect books, and as a student my flat was stuffed with bookcases, all overfilled. Many of the books I hadn’t read, but still I liked to have them. They somehow seemed to hold a promise of a better life – an educated life with answers.
Books were succeeded by clothes, and although they never made me the better loved and admired person they told me I would be, I continued to waste money on them, year after year. I never seemed to have any ready cash and was unable to save anything for the future, yet my wardrobe was stuffed till the clothes were falling out on the floor.
All this while, though, I read books about people who lived the simple life. Up there amongst my favourites were the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House series. I loved to read about the Ingalls family crossing the prairies and living out of their wagon, cooking over a camp fire and sleeping out under the stars with just their dog and Pa’s gun for protection against the Indians and the wolves. I loved to read about their log cabin in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, where the family lived off the land and made the big trip to town only once a year. I also loved to read about the Scottish Highlanders who lived in their tiny, turf-roofed black houses, described by outsiders as damp hovels but none the less housing some of the fittest and healthiest inhabitants of the British Isles. And later still I discovered the magnificent Granite Island by Dorothy Carrington and loved the descriptions of the austere, barbaric yet dignified life of the Corsican bandits, villagers and shepherds. And when I say loved, I mean loved. There was no topic I liked to read about more than people roughing the simple life.
It was as though I was living a life of magnificent simplicity in my imagination, while slowly creating a suffocating prison of stuff around me in reality. The more my imagination fed on the freedom of the boundless prairies of 19th century Kansas and Dakota, the more I imprisoned myself with my real 21st century life of stuff. Contradictory, or what?
A point came where I could take no more. I’d read Wilder, I’d read Thoreau, and my life no more resembled theirs than a battery chicken’s resembles that of a hawk. Where was my life going? I longed to be free and knew only my self-inflicted slavery. I also didn’t know where to start.
It was at that point that I discovered this marvellous new movement called minimalism. I think I first read about it in an article in the Saturday Times magazine which interviewed four or five people who had given up their things to live lives of awe-inspiring stufflessness. By modern consumerist standards these people should have been miserable and deprived, but they were happy and productive! They were living in the modern world, leading modern lives, and yet they felt free. I tore the article out of the magazine and looked up all the blogs and websites that were mentioned. I discovered Miss Minimalist and The Minimalists and my own minimalist journey was begun.
I can’t say it has been easy. There have been many pitfalls, and it’s taken me nearly two years to get to where I am now (which is to say, somewhere further down the road). At first I decluttered, but then bought more stuff. Then I decluttered and didn’t buy so much stuff. Then I moved house from a 1 bed flat into a shared flat, and had the incentive to get my belongings down to one car load to make the move easier. I didn’t manage it. What I thought was one car load turned out to be three car loads. At the end of the move, in my exhaustion at having packed, cleaned, transported and unpacked all that stuff, I banged my head on the hard wooden edge of the bed while vacuuming and gave myself a bad concussion. I was in bed for two weeks, forbidden by the doctor to read or watch TV for more than ten minutes at a time. I still suffer from frequent concussion-related headaches and migraines. Dealing with my stuff literally damaged my brain!
Now I would say I am more motivated than ever to live without much stuff and to pursue a simple and minimalist way of life. I recently started blogging about my journey towards a simple life and I hope you’ll come over and visit me at www.simplesophy.wordpress.com.
{If you’d like to learn more about minimalist living, please consider reading my book, The Joy of Less, A Minimalist Living Guide, or subscribing to my RSS feed.}
This has to be the most eloquently written and enjoyable Real Life Minimalist post I’ve ever read. Loved this! Good luck with your continued journey and I’m looking forward to checking out the simplesophy blog! :-)
Sophy…so appreciate your honesty about the pitfalls. I still feel like I’m two steps forward and one back in my journey! Looking forward to reading your blog! All the best, Karen
P.S. Hoping your head problems continue to diminish.
Loved reading your story, Sophy! Minimalism is indeed a process, one that I think we all continue to grapple with to some degree. Hope your head continues to improve — but it sounds to me like your brain’s working just fine!
I liked that bit about keeping books like a promise of a better life. This is one of the biggest traps – that illusion of something we really are not which we try to create by buying all kinds of stuff. Guilty of that myself…
I was a huge Laura Ingalls Wilder fan, too! Their simple needs made it so much easier for them to pick up and move on to the next place. They certainly didn’t fall into the modern trap of defining themselves by their purchase and possessions instead of their actions!
Sophy- read your blog in 20 minutes :) you have a gift in writing, please continue to do so. I wish I could write as good as you .
Wow, sorry to hear about hitting your head like that! Good for you for taking the minimalist journey. It really does bring happiness. I too am a ravenous reader and collecting books was a big thing for me. When I discovered minimalism, getting rid of my books was the hardest, but once I realized that it is just an object and I can always get it from the library, I let go. I figured that is a waste of resources to have them on my shelf if I wasn’t going to read them again. Having someone else enjoy them and pass them on makes much more sense and gives me a freeing feeling.
Sophy, I was intrigued by the fact of you reading about the “barbarians” roughing it. This is an aspect of minimalism that is easy to forget. In the past, people lived and survived with very few things, yet they were able to make it and make it (most likely) while leading lives full of happiness. Way to go!
Enjoyed this very much! It took awhile for me to get to a point of not buying after purging as well! One thought, though, about the people from the past that inspired you (and me as well). Of the people you mentioned, only one (Thoreau) actually chose to live minimally. My guess is that the rest of them did it out of necessity. They had no other choice in their circumstances. I think they chose to be happy under the circumstances rather than their circumstances making them happy. I would be willing to bet that if given the option of central heating and air, a grocery store right around the corner, disposable income, etc., they would have happily taken it. My point is that I think the key is to strive for contentment regardless of your circumstances. Otherwise, we’re back in the trap of expecting something outside of us to make us happy.
Hi Sophy. I will definitely be over to visit yr blog! I too am an aspiring minimalist…with a husband, three kids, a dog, a home based business and far too big of a house. Alas, the minimizing decisions are not only mine to make! But we are making progress, slowly. Come visit my blog too!
Great post! Reminds me of how much I LOVED Boxcar Children (especially the first story, when they actually lived in a boxcar) and The Borrowers when I was little. Like you, I have lived most of my life in direct contradiction to the wonderful simplicity of these stories.
It reminds me of advice I’ve heard before – to be happy look at what you were naturally drawn to as a child. I’m dreaming of downsizing to a caravan and living my own boxcar life!
This was a great read, Sophy! Inspiring…I can sympathize with the books although I forget what I read so I get to enjoy my books like mysteries and my Bill McKibben and Thoreau over and over again and will not give those up though I did just donate 45 pounds of unused books.
Jennifer – the original Boxcar children was and is the best! Eating cheese while the free vegetable stew cooks and swimming in a natural pool you made yourself before going to bed in a snug boxcar! I still have my copy and refuse to declutter it :)
Thank you for sharing, Sophy! Paring down is a slow but very worthwhile process. It took me two years from the time I learned about minimalism, to actually start decluttering. And decluttering itself has taken years!
Here’s a post I wrote recently (with the help of some of my minimalist blogger friends) that you might find helpful: http://ourjourneytoithaca.com/2014/07/30/minimalism-a-beginners-guide-revised-version/ .
That’s something I really liked about the Laura Ingalls Wilder books as well! A lot of my daydreams used to start with imagining that I was born in a different time when you only had one favourite doll and when oranges were a huge treat.
I enjoyed reading your story, going to go check out your blog
Living a simple life has always been my goal. I have never owned very much clothing although I have picked up used hobby items. I liked MIss M’s post about cleaning up after our aspirations. Now I have one tote bag of fabric scraps and one basket of beading needs. I made a necklace for a friend as a gift but that was a while back. I was recently appalled to find out one of my friends never recycles. That led to a discussion of the world of the future. I believe living with less is clearly the way to have a more sustainable life for everyone.
I could never do a big wholesale clean out. I can and do find one or two bags a week of things I don’t need. If I keep doing this every week for a year, my home will be noticeably cleaner and emptier. Already, we take a couple of bags of recycling, 2 bags to Goodwill, and a bag to e- recycling every week. I have more flowerpots, more odd dishes and more instruction books to pass on. After all, 2 bags a week 52 bags a year is over 100 bags removed. A large amount.
I found a bag of stuffed animals I forgot I had. Another give away bag started. I also found more flower pots to give away. Then there are more dishes I need to give away. There are also more craft items going to the park district this week.
There are more things to be recycled and more to give away. I got a book for a gift and took an art class. I still have gift cards to use and right now, there is nothing I need. I am looking forward to a leaner year.
I have more books to give away. I have a bag for the cats’ doctor, a big bag for plastic recycling, and more for Goodwill. There is also a bag for my grandsons’ art teacher. Real Hoarders don’t let anyone in the house, but I have helped people sort through closets, basements, garages, craft rooms, etc. There is a lot of stuff in the average US home.