“The conversation with my clothes is broken. So is the one with my bags, shoes and accessories.”
I sighed out loud this afternoon while folding the tops I’d shortlisted from the big heap sitting in the middle of the room earlier. Just in case you were wondering, the shortlisted tops didn’t make me feel sad; instead in Marie Kondo’s words, they sparked joy.
So what made me pick up Marie Kondo’s The life changing magic of tidying up recently after a year-long hiatus? A Medium article on Lifestyle VS Aesthetic minimalism.
Mention minimalism to someone and a variety of terms and labels gets thrown around. Over the years, the minimalism wave has seen the likes of Muji lovers, Instagrammable minimalist pictures and a mostly B&W/neutral palette aesthetic. This article, however, broke down minimalism into two parts:
Aesthetic minimalism VS Lifestyle minimalism.
Paraphrasing the author’s points, aesthetic minimalism focuses on the material attributes of being a minimalist — sticking to a clean black and white colour palette, ensuring very little clutter in their space (choosing to keep things only because they make their space look aesthetically pleasing, not because they bring value to their lives) and having a very “bare” feeling in one’s interior. You can SEE aesthetic minimalism.
On the contrary, a lifestyle minimalist pares down their belongings, lifestyle choices (be it food, clothes etc) or passion projects because they only want to keep/do the things that matter and bring value to their lives. This type of minimalism may not be necessarily seen, but you can definitely FEEL it.
I could definitely feel myself vibing towards “lifestyle minimalism”. In my head, I was going: “Hey, that’s me constantly wanting to assess the quality and value of the things I bring into my life as well as the existing bonds (be it family, friendship, acquaintance or romantic) in my life. And then I remembered that’s Marie K’s philosophy as well.
Realising that not only made me appreciate her philosophy but also approach her book again with a different mindset; a renewed perspective. I was eager to explore her philosophy when I first learnt about her book and was thrilled to read it when my office Secret Santa surprised me with it. However, the rate at which I put her book’s principles into practice was slower than the rate I was reading her book. Over time, my interest waned and I stopped reading it for a while BUT her ideas never left my mind.
Until I came across this lifestyle minimalism concept.
For someone who’s always exploring the connection between my mind, body and soul and my living space, I’m very intentional and particular with the things I choose to bring into where I work, sleep and live. I like to see it as a conversation between me and my things; me and my lifestyle.
As mentioned earlier, conversations between me and my clothes matter. I need them stored in a proper place and organised in a certain way. That’s when they can achieve their highest purpose of not only clothing me, but inspiring me and sparking joy in me. At the moment, I don’t feel happy with how they’re stored and organised, but it’s a project I’m working on and the first step begins with discarding the pieces that no longer bring me joy and keeping the ones I feel good in.
The conversations I have with my things and lifestyle can affect my anxiety levels and inner peace as well. Which is why I devote some time every week to reflect on my current goals, passion projects(s), weekly expenditure, app subscriptions etc. Doing so keeps me grounded and aware of the “things” entering my life so that I’ll be able to tell which are the ones that are redundant or adding clutter and anxiety to my life.
For example, I realised I had too many photo-editing apps. Having one would do the job, considering I don’t post everyday. Paring them down to just VSCO got rid of the photo app clutter and made me feel relaxed.
Here’s another example. I’d saved too many pictures in my Instagram account, and they were mostly about stuff I wanted to write/talk about. So I began to unsave everything one by one, screenshotting the ones and filing them away to my phone photos folder so that I could talk about them on a separate occasion. Granted, it’s a small action, but one that made a positive impact on my anxiety levels.
On a bigger scale, I haven’t been able to practise lifestyle minimalism in the number of passion projects to focus on. Right now, I’ve three swirling in my mind!!! Insane, I know. But in order to be good at something, you can’t have your energies spread too thin, which is why ideally I’d like to have just ONE project to throw myself into.
But this practice of Marie Kondoing my space to embody the lifestyle minimalist in me is a long, arduous journey. Seeing that I’m living with my family who may not necessarily have the same thoughts on this, I may not be able to progress as far as I’d like to in this journey. But as with everything in life, you adapt to its ebb and flow.
I’m happy to take you along this journey, that is if I think it’s any value at all to write about Part II of this post. Today, I’ve already tackled 1/2 of my closet, so there’s another half to go. I feel somewhat relaxed and calm. That’s already a good sign :)
