“Acknowledging the good that
you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”
-
Eckhart Tolle
By embracing minimalism, we
actually reinvent our lives to reflect the items, belongings and values for
which we are most thankful. Thankfulness is about valuing our possessions and
expressing gratitude for those things in our lives which we currently have. In minimalism,
we highlight those things that we value most by getting rid of all the things
that we value the least. Whenever we choose to live simpler lives, we find
ourselves less likely to complain, more likely to be thankful and overflowing
with the joy of recognizing the value of what we already possess.
Thankfulness does not come
naturally to most people. Our brains are wired to focus on the negative. Think
about it, I’ll bet out of the five most vivid memories you have, I would wager
at least three of them were either negative experiences or traumatic events.
Our minds are structured in such a way as to protect us from imminent danger,
emotional harm or to avoid any negative or unpleasant stimuli. We are far more
likely to have our moods impacted negatively by an upcoming dreadful
circumstance than we are for the anticipation of an expected pleasant event.
While everyone has some ungrateful
tendencies to a certain extent, some personality types are simply prone to be
less thankful than others, sometimes for specific reasons. Similarly, there are
also three distinct personality types that are generally opposed to minimalism
more so than the typical individual. For the purposes of this method, I have
identified each of these as named in this section. Let’s take a look at the
three personality types that demonstrate how interconnected thankfulness and minimalism
are to influencing your living space: searchers, hoarders and organizers.
Searchers
MBM definition: a personality type who is constantly
looking or searching for happiness through the pursuit of acquiring new
possessions; typically through making purchases of material items from a store,
mall or online retailer.
So, what does minimalism have
to do with thankfulness? The fact is that the more possessions you have, the
more possessions you want! Once you journey down the rabbit hole of attempting
to find happiness through acquiring new possessions, you will discover that no
amount of personal effects, valuables or “stuff” will ever be enough. When you
purchase that great new gadget or the new hot item that everyone wants, you
will feel that new purchase rush for a little while. Over time, the “rush”
diminishes and all you will end up with is another trinket on the shelf and
less money in the bank. In order to feel the “rush” again, you must continue to
make future purchases. I refer to those individuals who attempt to find
happiness through acquiring material goods as searchers. These “searchers” have
an insatiable appetite for the latest and greatest items on the market. To be
clear, no amount of clothes, new iPhones or shiny new toys will ever be able to
fill the hole inside of you. You must search for deeper meaning in life than
what retail has to offer. To break free of a “searcher” type of personality,
you must discover that your happiness cannot be bought. Happiness is temporary
and based solely on your circumstances. Choose to seek joy over happiness. By
seeking joy through reducing or eliminating the overall volume of items you own
can actually help the seeker personality break free of the materialism trap
that ensnares so many people in our consumer-driven culture. Through
minimalism, you can learn to be thankful for what you already have and stop
searching for happiness and fulfillment through your credit card.
Hoarders
MBM definition: a personality type who is constantly collecting,
hiding or storing far more material goods than they actually need; usually out
of habit, fear or compulsion. At times, this person may not even know why they
feel the need to collect such an abundance of material possessions.
During the Great Depression
era, it was vital for one’s survival to be very careful not to throw away any
items that could possibly be reused in the future. People would store items
that, by today’s standards, might be considered junk. For some, the “hoarder”
personality type might be a generational affliction of the extremely elderly
who either actually lived during that period or, far more likely, was raised by
a parent or grandparent who survived through the depression-era economic
upheaval. However, many others simply have a well-known affliction known as
“hoarding disorder.” Such a mental state renders a person nearly helpless to
avoid stuffing every closet, unused room or empty space with any item that they
can get their hands on. Many others simply grew up in poverty and know that the
fear of not having their needs met is the reason why they keep the items that
they do. Sometimes, people acquire emotional attachments to an item, a vehicle
or even real estate that reminds them of a specific past event, a relative or
their own youth. Many of the hoarder personality types never fully embrace
minimalism. However, for the few that do, being freed from a life of being
buried alive by one’s own possessions gives them an opportunity to be thankful
for those items that they choose to keep, the organized space they now enjoy
and the lessened stress from the chaotic nature of their home space after such
a massive purge.
Organizers
MBM definition: a personality type who collects numerous
possessions and chooses to store and orderly arrange these items in specially
designed closet spaces, shelves and drawers. The highly systematic storage
system utilized by this individual is typically for the expressed purpose of
being able to effectively maintain the current level of possessions and collect
even more items at a later time. This individual acquires far more material
goods than they actually need; usually out of habit or compulsion.
Fact: you can completely
de-clutter your home and not have a minimalist approach to your living space at
all. The “organizer” personality type will effectively make your home livable
by purchasing specialized drawers, having companies come into your home and
rebuild your closet and even rent highly ordered storage units to maintain your
entire collection of worldly possessions. Sounds pretty good, right? Now, what
if you must consider one or more of the following scenarios in your near future?
Imagine you must relocate for your job on short notice. What if your parents
are “organizer” personality types and one or both of them pass away suddenly
and you are left to deal with the estate? What if you lose your job and must
quickly downsize to a smaller living space that does not have the same volume
of storage available? What if there is an economic downturn and the storage units
that you have been paying through the nose for can no longer fit into your
household budget? If you are still collecting items even though you can hardly
store all of your belongings, then chances are that you are not truly thankful
for any of them. You likely take your material wealth for granted. Placing you
on a minimalist trajectory will increase your thankfulness and joy while giving
you a much more pleasant living space to call home.
Comments
Post a Comment