The Pursuit Of Minimalism: Journey to Your Happy Home, Mind, Finances and Social Life

By Olivier T. Johnson

Do you feel like there is too much clutter in your life? Have things become so overwhelming that you can't seem to enjoy life? Are you caught up in chasing material possessions, but can't seem to get satisfied even when you get them? Are you wondering why you are always short of money? If this feels like you, then this book is for you.

In this book, you are going to learn about the minimalist lifestyle and how it can improve the quality of your life and give you a chance at happiness.

Here is what you will learn inside the book

• What minimalism is and what it is not
• The advantages of a minimalist lifestyle
• How to fit minimalism into your life
• How to reprogram your mind for minimalism
• How to cope with emotions when decluttering your life
• How to incorporate minimalism into your financial life
• How to achieve a minimalist home
• How to achieve a minimalist family
• And so much more...

Ready to learn how to implement this lifestyle change and see a great transformation in your life? Read this book and learn everything you need to about living a minimalist life. I promise you won't regret it

• Language: English
• Publisher: Olivier T. Johnson
• Release date: May 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393357223

Book preview

The Pursuit Of Minimalism:

Journey to Your Happy Home, Mind, Finances and Social Life

Olivier T.  Johnson

© Copyright 2019 - All rights reserved.

It is not legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter One: What Is Minimalism?

Chapter Two: The Advantages Of Minimalism And Simple Living

Chapter Three: How To Fit Minimalism Into Your Life

Chapter Four: Reprogramming Your Mind For Minimalism And Getting Rid Of Mental Clutter

Chapter Five: The Emotional Process Of Letting Go: How To Cope With Your Emotions When Decluttering Your Life

Chapter Six: Incorporating Minimalism Into Your Financial Life

Chapter Seven: Digital Minimalism In The Age Of Social Media

Chapter Eight: The Minimalist Home: A Practical Approach To Decluttering Your Home

Chapter Nine: The Minimalist Family: How To Embark On The Minimalism Journey With Your Family

Chapter Ten: Creating New Minimalism Habits And Routines As A Minimalist

Final Words

Introduction

In the last few years , there has been growing public interest in minimalism, a concept that promises that it can improve the quality of people’s lives and become happier by shunning materialism and embracing simplicity. But does minimalism really bring all the benefits it is claimed to have, and does it mean that you need to get rid of everything you own? This book will provide you with answers to all the questions you have about minimalism. If you have been thinking about adopting the minimalist lifestyle but did not know where to start, this book will also provide you with a practical approach that will help you undergo this life-changing lifestyle transformation.

Some of the things you will learn in this book include:

●  What minimalism is, and what it is not

●  The different types of minimalism

●  The advantages of a minimalist and simple living

●  How to fit minimalism into your life

●  How to reprogram your mindset for minimalism

●  How to cope with emotions when decluttering your life

●  How to incorporate minimalism into your financial life

●  How to declutter and achieve a minimalist home

●  And so much more...

Join me on the inside so that we can embark on this exciting journey together.

Chapter One: What Is Minimalism?

Although the concept of minimalism has been around for centuries, it has gained a lot of prominence in the last few decades. Everywhere you turn, on the internet and on mainstream media, people are singing praises for this life-changing concept. The concept has been adopted in a wide range of industries, from fashion and beauty to food, design, architecture, and technology. You have heard of all the massive benefits of embracing the minimalist lifestyle, and you also want to give it a try and reap these benefits. In this book, I am going to show you exactly how to incorporate the minimalist lifestyle into your life. But before we get to that, we need to understand what exactly minimalism is.

When most people hear the term minimalism, they think about throwing out everything in your home and living with 100 things or less, living in a tiny home with one piece of furniture and bare white walls, selling your car, giving up your hobbies, and so on. This view of minimalism has been propagated by an erroneous presentation of minimalism on the internet and on mainstream media. While there are some minimalists who choose to live like that, this is not the point of minimalism.

So, if minimalism is not all that, what exactly is it? The simple answer to this question is that minimalism is a concept that is based on the principle of less is more. It is about identifying what is essential to you in life, intentionally living with only what you need while letting go of the rest, so that you can enjoy what is important to you.

While the above answer does a good job of summing up what minimalism is all about, to understand minimalism well, we need to dig deeper into the concept and understand why it is experiencing an upsurge in popularity. In order to do that, we need to take a look at the modern world and modern culture.

Modern culture, capitalism and the explosion of consumerism have created a world that is focused on accumulating things. People believe that the more you own, the better your quality of life. Many of us already ascribe to this ideology because it is being sold everywhere you turn. If you turn on the TV today, it won’t be long before you come across a program talking about celebrities. However, the focus is not on what they have achieved, but rather on what they own. The big cars, the mansions, million-dollar watches, yachts, you name it. On YouTube, there are numerous documentaries about the lives of the rich. Of course, this leads to the illusion that the more things you own, the happier your life will be.

This illusion that the more you own, the better your life will be has led to a preoccupation with accumulating material possessions. We have reduced everything in life to the pursuit of more material possessions. We look for better-paying jobs so that we have more money to buy more stuff. We work more than one job so that we have more money to spend on stuff. Some of us even work on holidays because we want more money to purchase more stuff – more clothes, bigger houses, more cars, more television sets, and so on.

The irony here is that, while we seek more believing that it will make us happier, the pursuit of more actually makes it harder for us to enjoy what we have. You crave a bigger house, but to afford it, you have to work more, which means that you spend less time in this house in the end. You buy an exotic car, but your satisfaction is short-lived. You notice that your neighbour has a more expensive car and start craving for it and become less happy with yours.

Let’s stop and think for a while. Do we seriously need all this stuff? Why do you need three closets full of clothes? Would you be less happy if you only had one full closet of the clothes you love? Just because you have three cars in your garage, does this automatically make you happier than the guy with one car in his garage? Nope. If anything, this preoccupation with accumulating stuff only gets in the way of what is really important. You work so hard trying to afford more stuff that you have no time to enjoy what you actually have. You focus so much on accumulating more stuff that you forget about the important things in your life, such as your loved ones and your passions. How many times have you heard people complaining that they work so hard that they hardly ever get to see their kids or spouse, yet they live in the same house?

Minimalism is the solution to this crazy preoccupation with an accumulation of material possessions. Living a minimalist lifestyle calls for the realization that possessions do not automatically translate to a higher quality of life. Minimalism encourages people to perform an audit of their lives and identify what is truly important in their lives and learn to remove the rest so that they can create more space to focus on what truly matters. When you are not focused on buying an extra car just for the sake of it, you have more money to treat your loved ones. When you don’t have to work twice as hard in order to afford a second home that you’ll only live in one month per year, you have more time to spend with your spouse and kids. Minimalism promotes the idea that happiness lies in things such as relationships and experiences, rather than possessions.

Aside from pulling us out of the rat race of chasing possessions, minimalism also gives us freedom from modern mania. Modern life is too frantic. We are constantly rushing, constantly distracted, constantly stressed. We are constantly busy, but it seems that we can never get everything done. We just have too much on our to-do lists and on our minds. Having to deal with all these things uses up all of our time and mental energy and leaves us tired and stressed, yet many of these things are not even necessary in our lives. Minimalism gives us the freedom to disengage and slow down our lives. It encourages us to do away with all the unfulfilling activities, obligations, expenses, relationships, thoughts, and distractions that might be keeping you from living your best life.

Finally, minimalism is a state of mind. Minimalism does not dictate what you need to do away with and what you need to keep. There are no hard and fast rules. Instead, minimalism encourages each person to evaluate their own life, identify what they value the most and do away with everything else that adds no value to their lives. The focus of minimalism is not on dumping everything, but rather on keeping only what is important to you. This means that minimalism is a highly personal endeavour. My version of minimalism might be totally different from yours since what I consider to be important to me is totally different from what you consider to be significant.

What Minimalism Is Not

Like I mentioned earlier, the internet and mainstream media have spread some falsehoods about the minimalist concept, and as such, there are a lot of misconceptions about minimalism. These misconceptions make the minimalist concept hard to relate to. They make it seem unachievable or undesirable. However, this is quite the opposite. In order to fully understand the minimalist concept, we need to address these misconceptions, so that you can get into the minimalist lifestyle