The goal of less

New Year, more minimalist me.

As a naturally organized, to-the-point-of-OCD person, minimalism has always called my name. I mean hell, I am a Capricorn born into a family of all Virgos (Container Store is our Mecca), so it’d be weird if I wasn’t a neat freak. Astrology aside, minimalism is more than just a neat and tidy home to me. It speaks to a simpler and more streamlined life, in which I’m not weighed down by the physical weight I feel when carrying moving boxes to each new home, and the emotional weight of knowing I have literal baggage.

I cannot tell you how much I love purging, and how many times I’ve done it. Yet somehow, there is still always more and more to purge. Part of this stems from being a part of consumer culture. “If I buy X, I will be happy.” But once my excitement over X ends, I suddenly need to buy Y, and the vicious cycle continues.

I’ve gotten better — really, I have. I’m self deprecating enough to admit when I have a problem, and I most definitely have a shopping problem. I guess you can say I’m in a slow recovery. The urge to buy beautiful things will never, ever go away, but I’ve trained my eye to be more discerning. I no longer buy something just because it’s cute and I have a discount. I now only buy things I need and adore, and nothing more… but even then, I can still improve.

And so the continuous purge will continue on. Let’s also not forget the fact that we are living in the middle of a global pandemic, which keeps us all housebound the majority of the time. So instead of being distracted by life’s everyday adventures, I am constantly staring at my home, and all of its things. Things are everywhere. Things haunt me.

The thing is (no pun intended), I really like a lot of the things I have now. But do I adore them all? Probably not, if I want to be really tough on myself… and I do, actually, because the idea of having less actually means more to me. Having less allows us to appreciate what we have.

Think of it this way. So many people love to stock their fridges with tons of food — produce that they bought with the vision of themselves as a green, goop goddess, maybe some extra yogurts to save themselves from future trips, a bunch of fresh berries… but then what happens? They stock their fridges so much, they can’t see or appreciate everything that’s in there. So the greens begin to wilt, the yogurts expire and the berries get moldy.

All this to say that the less I have in my home, the easier it is to focus on the things I truly adore.

So that is my goal for 2021: LESS. As simple as that. I’ll continue to purge regularly, and by purge I mean donate, donate, donate. This is a topic I get so fired up on, so I will probably post more going forward, and go deeper into my methods, my tools and my plans. Stay tuned!