Why I Decided to Go Down the Minimalism Road

In the last couple of years, every time I felt sad, sick, angry, exhausted, demotivated, or hopeless (and gosh, there were a little too many such instances!), and the husband asked me what happened, I would almost always have no answer to it. I have been generally healthy, in a financially stable job, and have a stable family life. On introspecting, while I would attribute those emotions to several internal and external factors, sometimes beyond my understanding, one thing I remember was common in all those instances was me having a look around the house and telling the husband, “can we have fewer things in the house?” Getting rid of material possessions occurred to me as an answer to so many of my problems for so many different reasons. I attached unpleasant feelings to many of the things around me. It was these feelings I actually wanted to get rid of, for they put me in the vicious circle of sickness, lack of motivation, anger, exhaustion, sadness, and hopelessness.

From among the various measures I took to work on my emotions and feelings, decluttering and minimising appealed to my sensibilities at so many different levels. Here is a lowdown of my feelings attached to things that led me down the road to minimalism and my baby step towards creating the life I want.

Clothes

I suffered from the ” I have nothing to wear” syndrome with a wardrobe brimming with clothes. In the year 2014, my life underwent a major shift, and before embarking on this new journey, I gave away every single piece of clothing, barring a pair of jeans and one t-shirt, I owned. And it made complete sense to me. As I started rebuilding my wardrobe, I experienced two major life events – weight issues and marriage.

In the last 5 years, I have gone from being extremely thin to borderline obese every 6 to 8 months. Clothes in my wardrobe, though, have remained the size I wish to be, but have never been. 🙂 Or those that came in my wedding – as part of the trousseau, gifts, and love I was bestowed with. You must know, gifting clothes is one of the most preferred ways of showing love to your dear ones in my part of the world. My wardrobe grew manifold just as the love in my life did.

Not every piece of clothing in my wardrobe resonated with who I am. But I stopped buying clothes for myself out of guilt, of already owning so much, and of not having worn so many pieces even once. And the feeling of guilt was often clubbed with a sense of despair of “not having anything to wear.” And even feeling sorry for myself!?!?!

Household Items

Two years ago, I set out to build and manage a full-fledged household with my husband. It has surely been one of the most precious phases of my life. But, even at the start of it, we had so much stuff as if we had been running a household for at least a decade. Thanks to the wedding, again. From multiple pieces of the same serveware, cooking utensils, to crockery… I had four kinds of juicers alone. I had bed sheets, table covers and runners, cushion covers, and other furnishings by the dozen. Things, from the past, of emotional value to our families, to boxes full of husband’s and my books and other memories from school and college we refused to part with, ten-odd large suitcases and bags, wedding gifts, and more gifts, and more gifts. There was everything in excess. Because, what if we have family visiting us? Or when we’re hosting at home. While we did host a lot of our relatives and friends at home, I was equipped to host the entire neighbourhood. Really.

Also somehow, after you’re married, your mother and mother-in-law’s love shows in the number of bags you carry back from their homes to yours. There are way too many things that they believe you would need to run your house smoothly. No doubt, they are our saviors on most occasions, but in the hindsight, I honestly feel, I could do without a lot of those things. All the stuff, which at some point felt important even to me, brought with it a discomforting sense of clutter and suffocation. And the real pain of maintaining it. It took a major part of my days off from work.

Gifts

This is the category of things in your house with the maximum potential of stirring up the feeling of guilt in you and oughts to be mentioned separately. I am truly blessed to have the most loving and caring family and set of friends in life. Their presence in my life means everything to me. But, in the last couple of years, I reached an overwhelming point in life with the excessive exchange of gifts in my circle, that on three occasions, I donated the clothes I was gifted, the very next day that I received them. I did not want any of my relationships to have a material aspect to them anymore.

The Intangible

There are certain things that you see in front of you that bring you unhappiness. But there are more things which you carry in your mind, that keep you from being happy. Apart from memories, their presence in your life is felt in the form of Google news, Facebook feed, Instagram stories, and other Apps and notifications. These can take you to a negative hollow from where it often seems impossible to come back. 

The Turning Point

Last year, I was on an international holiday with the husband. We had booked a five star property in the swankiest area of one of the most happening cities in the world. One evening, I sat in the balcony of our 32nd floor room watching the glittering skyline, and… cried. Those were definitely not tears of joy. I am still trying to figure out the reason for that outburst (or I probably know, but it is too complex to write here!). That day, I realised that sometimes even the best of every”thing” in the world is not enough to make you feel happy. And that is when I knew it was time to change.

While there are more apparent feelings that I attached to all the material possession in my life, there were much deeper emotions these things evoked in me which I found difficult to handle.

1. I often cribbed about not having what I want. And instead, having to do with what was given to me. 
2. I was tired of not being able to be me, and let my personality show in my choice of things.
3. I was simultaneously turning environment-conscious, and quite successfully at that, and struggled with not wanting to have more but have what I wanted. You get that, right? 🙂
4. Sometimes, the maintenance of the house took a toll on me. I spent hours and days cleaning and organising the different corners of the house. While this is something I love doing the most, the mammoth amount of stuff that filled our shelves and cabinets, but we never used, overwhelmed me, and even left me angry at times. It felt like I was investing my energies into things that have no meaning in my life.
5. Every time I had a bad day at work or elsewhere, or experienced any negative emotion stemming from a source not even remotely related to home, I felt uneasy being surrounded by things in the house and felt a lack of space to breathe in. Even though I had put my heart and soul in doing up the house and it was my pride. 

I recently shifted base to a new city and knew that this was the perfect opportunity for me to start over, with the things that I really need and want, and get rid of those that I don’t (responsibly, of course). And that is just what I did. Although COVID-19 made sure I don’t even get the essentials I need to start a new household, this has been a perfect time for me to assess whether I like this new way of living. And so far, I am loving it. 

I will soon be sharing how I am minimising the various categories of my possessions, learning to live with the absolute basics, acknowledging and asserting my feelings, needs and aspirations, and redefining my goals and approach to life by reevaluating things that are actually important to me and take me closer to the kind of life I want for myself. 

Stay tuned. 🙂

Indian Minimalists