As a vagabond and digital nomad, I don’t live with bare minimums but with bare maximums, this is how I live my life at its maximum.
“Simplicity involves unburdening your life, and living more lightly with fewer distractions that interfere with a high quality life, as defined by each individual.” -Linda Breen Pierce
I’m not sure if the term “bare maximum” is valid vocabulary or grammatically correct but that’s how I’d describe my approach to the minimalist lifestyle.
The physical contents of my “living” possessions are actually quite intricate, specific and ever-evolving yet they all fit as airplane carry-on baggage. After all, I literally(?) and optimally live out of a backpack.
I strategically equip just what I need and a little of extras but all to my exacting personal requirements and tastes. Keeping it ultralight yet exceedingly functional.
Minimalism is not just about reducing unnecessary tangible things, however. It’s just as important to declutter your life of elements that drag you down, distract you and affects you negatively; debt, bad / expensive habits, destructive relationships, etc.
I wouldn’t be able to do what I do if I had a lot excess baggage, figuratively and literally.
It’s not about living with as little as possible but with intelligent balance while figuring out what things are really worth to you and as a part of your life.
“Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. Realize nothing is lacking and the world will belong to you.” -Lao Tzu
Most people would logically consider homeless people to be the de facto minimalist. I even consider myself one in someways, but generally this is very inaccurate.
I know many homeless people and their way of life as I’ve had to study and live with them for research for my former profession. And I’ll tell you, they are far from minimalists, in fact most are senseless and survivalist hoarders, despite their limited possession capabilities.
The point is that to maximize ones life as a minimalist is not to have the least amount of possessions. It’s about minimizing what you don’t need (but not outright eliminating) and maximizing utility to best collaborate with your specific way of life, by design.
Learning to live with less than what society perceives is needed will teach us to do more and excel with less and better use and value what we already have.
“Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.” -Hosea Ballou
This can enhance and maximize your life with less monetary spending, unburdening your societal upbringing of materialism and opening your eyes to what’s really important, useful and valued.
With a life of minimalism, less can truly be more.
[The featured photo was taken with while island hopping the Gili’s off the coast of Indonesia.]
7 Comments
Great post title! Very quotable… Being a minimalist is defintaly the way to live, traveler, parent, single, professional – whatever. We just don’t need all the crap that we buy and retain, but then again, it’s the “wants” that get us 🙁
Exactly. It’s the crap we want but don’t need that messes us all up. But like Vinjabond said, “don’t outright eliminate the wants”. We are human after all.
Been going minimal since I found your blog, it gets easier but still hard to shred some stuff. But once I start vagabonding, Im sure its going to be cake.
I just need a backpack with some of my stuff and I can live and travel like a pro.
“unburdening your societal upbringing of materialism” thats a brilliant way to put it, it describes my daughters perfectly, or most American girls, actually most of the Western civilization probably. I try to teach them about minimalism but not easy with pre-teen girls.
interested in purchasing one of these back pack would like to be notified when available