But it wasn’t through owning more stuff it wasn’t through accumulation. We embraced minimalism as a way of life and discovered that we, too, could be happy. Through months of research we traveled further and further down the rabbit hole, and over time we discovered a group of people without a lot of things but with myriad happiness, passion, and freedom. We lingered curiously on the limbic portions of its perimeter, scouring feverishly through Internet page after Internet page, looking for more information and guidance and enlightenment, watching and learning and attempting to understand what this whole “simple living” thing was all about. What’s worse, we discovered we didn’t have control of our time, and thus we didn’t control our own lives.Īnd then, as our lives were spiraling downward in ever-diminishing circles towards an empty oblivion, we inadvertently discovered minimalism. And we discovered working 70 to 80 hours a week to buy more stuff didn’t fill the void-it only widened it: the endless pursuit of more stuff only brought us more debt, anxiety, fear, stress, loneliness, guilt, overwhelm, paranoia, and depression.
Maybe we looked successful-displaying our status symbols like trophies on a shelf-but we weren’t truly successful because, even with all our stuff, we weren’t satisfied with our lives. After all, we were living the American Dream-weren’t we?īut the truth is we weren’t successful. They saw all that superfluous stuff and they just knew we were successful. They saw our six-figure jobs, our luxury cars, our new gadgets, our lives of opulence, and they thought, These guys have it figured out I want to be just like them. But we were only ostensibly successful.īack then people saw two best friends in their large suburban homes and they were envious. Eventually.īefore we understood the importance of simplifying our lives, we were successful young professionals from Dayton, Ohio. But it was this abstract, complex idea-the thought of being truly happy-that led us to minimalism.
Happiness is an expansive concept: it can be a mind-numbing thing to try to capture with words.
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