Our colleague Varita Kirtley, recently utilized our Cavignac Audible Program during her reading of “Goodbye, Things” by Fumio Sasaki. Varita shares her insights and some key takeaways from Sasaki’s work and how she is applying these lessons to her own life.
“Fumio has a very strong belief on living a minimalist life. Almost to the point of not having anything. Living in a 100 square foot apartment would be his ideal life and packing up all his belongings in 30 mins to move instantly brings him peace. Based on my life and nostalgic valuables this is not realistic. However, he does bring up great points on some minimalist practices.
He explains that living in a space that has no clutter or useless belongings creates more space making your home seem bigger. No clutter means know where everything is; everything has a place. Your clean up time is much faster and because of that you clean more frequently, always having a clean home that creates a sense of clarity and calmness.
He convinced me that the retail world is quite poisonous. We are programed to think we constantly need more or newer things. But the constant need to buy more and constantly upgrade is toxic to our mental health because we’re always spending more money and comparing ourselves to what other people have or if we have more of than other people. The appreciation of what we currently have is non-existent. Minimalism allows us to save more money and minimalize your carbon footprint on the earth with less need for material things.
When you become a minimalist, you take in less information because you’re not focused on unimportant information, such as gossip, or media junk. Less information does not mean quiet. It means better content. You are more present with your surroundings and are better at filtering out toxic information & people who are not a positive impact in your life.
Power of concentration improves, no longer drowning in the excess of everything. The excess of wants. The excess of non-needs. The excess of loud static. Minimalism reduces the stress of constantly focusing on what we do or do not have. Deletes the worrying of what people think of you, and creates appreciation for what and who you do have.
Lastly, he brings up Marie Kondo’s quote “Does this item bring you joy?” The idea of only keeping things that bring you joy helps us minimalize. He notes you don’t need photo albums cause now we have the cloud to keep our memories. We don’t need our book collection because now we have audiobooks or the public library. We can give away things that don’t bring us joy and they may bring someone else the joy we didn’t have for that item.
I can’t say I want to live in an apartment that only has a small couch, toilet, shower, sink and one set of utensils/bowl/plate. I like hosting events at the house. I like my Staub cookware. I like my wine glasses. I could do without the snacks at the house but then again, I have a 3.5-year-old snacking maniac. I did however apply this process when I completely cleared up my work desk. I used this practice when I unpacked my two boxes of books in the garage and realized I am donating 70% of them. And I will be applying this process when I go through my daughters’ toys soon and start purging her stuff. She will not be with me when I do this….of course.
My advice after listening to the audiobook…Listen to it. It has great points. Apply what you want to see if these practices can take off some of your mental stress in life. And go from there.”