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.
This week we hear from Marina Marshenkulova (Amara), who tells us how she’s downsizing her possessions (including her wardrobe) now that she’s living in India. Read more about her experiences on her blog.
Marina writes:
It’s time to stop envying minimalists and become one. And keep in mind that being too minimalistic and obsessed about it is another side of the coin that I would like to avoid. First of all, I signed a contract with myself. For the next 2 years I’m not going to buy any summer clothes. Any. In 2 years I’ll revisit the contract and if I still have a lot, the contract is renewed for two more years. And I can tell it’s not going to be easy since I live in India now, and I’m crazy about their clothes.
Every time when I come back to my parents’ home which is in Kabardino-Balkaria (South of Russia), I feel how many things I would like to throw away. My mother doesn’t believe in throwing things away. Soviet past took a toll on her and her generation: people keep anything and everything “just in case,” even if it’s an old bottle. And since my parents own a house and a garden, they think they have all the space in the world to keep it all in. Believe me, they don’t. But I am making peace with it. After all, I cannot force them to change. I can do it differently in my life. After all, I never liked buying knick-knacks, have cute little useless statues collecting dust on the shelves, carpets and rugs on the floor and OMG, on the wall. I like to keep it minimal.
I started envying minimalists when I first went to India. I have to admit – I am not a minimalist when it comes to clothing. Despite the fact that I hate shopping, I do own a lot of beautiful dresses, skirts, tunics, etc. In India I realized that too much clothing is a hassle, and it’s not a big deal to wear the same stuff over and over as long as it is clean. So I started leaving things behind. But continued buying them as well. I love Indian fabrics and couldn’t get enough until I changed all my wardrobe completely. Now I have a contract, so let’s see, how the things change.
The most important thing. As a person striving towards minimalism, I stopped valuing things that much. I stopped understanding people who do (and I come from a place where you are what you wear). I stopped wanting things for my birthday. I stopped being sentimental over things. I stopped feeling attached to the past.
People are important. Things are not. Experiences are important. Clothes are not (I need to work on this one more ☺). So far so good!
I have a blog where I write about things that I am interested:
– minimalistic life style
– meditations, Osho and conscious way of living
– India
– learning a foreign language (since I am a teacher of English on Skype)
– my fairy-tales (since I write them occasionally)
– articles on different things (since I am a freelance journalist)
– my different crazy and not so much experiences during travel (since I am an avid traveler)
– many other things.
The blog is in two languages – English and Russian, what to do, I love both of them ☺. You are very welcome!
{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.}
What a great interview! I am about to hop over and check out Amara’s blog. It’s funny, Amara comes from a Soviet background – I come from a Western background, firmly rooted in the Great Depression in America, and WWII rationing from both sides of the Pacific. My mom was born after both, but she was thoroughly indoctrinated from the parents and grandparents who experienced both eras. I knew my great-grandparents, and I was raised somewhat in the same manner – ‘Don’t throw it away, you may need it later’. So Amara and I… different backgrounds, different parts of the world…but the same task of having to break away from a clutter-filled family tradition.
How many of us, I wonder, come out of an early-to-mid 20th-century semi-hoarding background?
Yup, same here!
I am from the Netherlands and my parents said the same thing!
Same here! From Belgium!
My mother grew up in the UK during Depression and WWII. Same thing.
Those events had a lot to do with creating the fear of being without, which is at the root of clutter and hoarding in a lot of cases.
I have a different experience
– My Dad being a small child in Germany at the end of WWII, experienced leaving his home (luckily before it was destroyed) with a minimal amount of essential belongings and starting over elsewhere. They were lucky in many ways (esp. that nobody in the core family died). His lesson from this that he without pressure also impressed on his children: Don’t be attached to things, keep it simple, be aware what is essential for you, don’t hang on to what you don’t need. Don’t spend money on non-nesessary stuff, so you can afford to get/replace what you really need.
(And it is tough for him, that my mum is kind of the opposite, when it comes to accumulating clutter, but they manage to live together…)
Dear Nina, your Dad sounds wonderful! Indeed, don’t get attached to things… Keep it simple… It’s the same with everything – things, thoughts, people…
Dear Mary Beth, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. I remember when I lived in the USA, I realized how different everything was back there. I came from a place where there was lack of many things, and here I was as a teenager where i could have it all pretty much. So there was a journey from lacking to consuming a lot. I am still on that journey and hopeful to become “what I preach”, and it’s so encouraging that there are many of us!
Hi Marina,
I enjoyed reading your story! It sounds like you have made some important changes in your life and you should be proud of your accomplishments, including blogging about it.
Indeed, clothes are difficult to get rid of. We tend to form an emotional attachment to the items we love or once loved but never wear. I do that too sometimes.
Heading over to check out your site! Thanks for sharing your story.
Be blessed,
Laura Beth
Dear Laura Beth, and in fact, everyone who read and shared their thoughts, thank you guys, so much for your comments. It’s so great to know that no matter where we are, we are all one, we share the same things. It makes the world so small and boundless!
Hi Marina,
many thanks for sharing your story! I have been a silent reader of the Miss Minimalist website for appr. 2 years and are still learning / improving / downsizing… not there yet but I am on my journey. Clothing is a tough one for me, I love nice dresses an suits and am working in a conservative environment (banking), where being well dressed is required. I love your idea on signing a contract with yourself, will do the same and need to sell and donate some more of my stuff, be more consistent on rotating with my clothing instead of buying new things.
Excellent inspriration, thanks again!
Dear Tina, I am so happy to be an inspiration! that’s the best compliment! good luck to us on our journey!
The Depression left a terrible scar on many people. My father in law thought real sugar and real butter were the greatest things in the world. My mother hoarded everything for no reason. My father had us drink a big glass of water when we sat down to a meal so we wouldn’t eat so much food. I have always found it hard to spend money on myself. I am always saving up for something.
As hoarding runs in my family–my cousin was found dead in his huge hoard last spring–I am lucky I am not afflicted by it. I started to think it must have had some advantage in surviving times of shortages. But that could explain food hoarding, not the paper hoarding that so many family members do. What survival advantage is there in piles of newspapers? My nephew, my sister and my mother all keep lots of newspapers. I recycle newspapers as soon as we’ve read them.
It seems a lot of people do paper hoarding. A friend was telling me about her basement stockpile of paper towels and toilet paper stacked up to the ceiling. I buy one more package of something when my supply runs low. Where we used to live, the electricity went out 4 to 6 times a year so I had a box of candles. In our 14 years here, we’ve never lost power so I only have 4 candles, period.
My mother is saving word puzzles she has finished. She has limited space in the nursing home and now won’t let anything be tossed or recycled. She has 2 purses full of old tea bags and junk and wants another one. I will bring her one when she lets go of something.