Meg Wolfe over at Minimalist Woman had a great post a few months ago that I just reread. Simplifying Yourself: Can You Make it Not About You?
Reading Meg’s post reminded that a) in a year I will think differently about my minimalist journey than I do now and b) to steal her quote about advice giving: who the hell am I?
Despite my little media flurry a few weeks back (note to other wannabe writers: getting an essay published in the Globe and Mail can bring unexpected emails from radio and television producers) I am not a guru or master of minimalism. I still look around my home and see more that we can live without. The more I pare down, the longer I live with less stuff (and live well!) the more I see that can go. Our big entertainment unit, that is now half bare, looks awkward and I am itching to replace it. Yes, we are reaping the benefits of living with less but there is still work to be done. We are still contemplating what one piece of furniture will replace the five we sold. For now, my husband’s sock drawer is a black IKEA soft box that was previously tagged for donation.
I started this blog as a way to document our journey and with the hope that writing about it would give me motivation to actually get it done. Because getting rid of stuff is hard. It takes time. I know that down the road I may think things are ‘perfect’ but that’s a temporary state. If I want to stay committed to a life with less stuff I must constantly edit what we have in our home. It has to become a lifestyle instead of a crash diet.
We’re living counter-culturally by living with less. Doing things differently makes you a bit of an oddity. Most people don’t want to discuss consumerism or debt or where the cheap stuff they buy goes when it breaks or they no longer want it. It’s sad and dark and doesn’t make you feel good. I’ve had some real pangs of regret/self-loathing at the amount of money I have wasted and the number of items I have purchased that will end up in a landfill after a very short life of use and wear. I’ve been quite transparent about our debt situation in an attempt to get more real with myself and others. Talking about debt is considered taboo. People would rather talk about their sex lives than their line of credit. I don’t want to be the downer at social events so I’m talking about the un-fun stuff here. Hopefully I don’t ruin too many other people’s Mondays by bringing up these unmentionables here on my blog.
Old habits are hard to break. When picking up some toilet paper at the drug mart I glanced at the magazine section, saw the cover of Dwell, and my heart leapt. I’m still battling the WANT. It’s easier these last few months but it’s still there. Despite knowing that an uber-modern townhouse with brushed concrete floors is not a necessity for a happy life, I still think about that townhouse.
I used to mark WIP (work-in-progress) as a status for projects at my old job. I always found it difficult to remove the WIP and just let the damn thing be done. There was always something more I could do to aim for perfect. For me, embracing a life with less will always be a work-in-progress. It’s not a one time action, it’s a lifestyle. I have to accept, and get over, the need for a finish line or a check mark.
Now, if anyone feels ‘complete’ and ‘done’ please tell me how you got there. The rest of us are dying to know.
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Thank you for these thoughts.. I really enjoy your blog! I am a mother of 2 and can relate to a lot of what you write about. I agree that we will never be officially “done”. It seems like just when I feel done with a space, I see something that could go, or something that could be changed in some way. I think maybe it is a part of human nature that most of us struggle with. Contentment with where we are now is tough, especially with a culture that is constantly telling us something else.
Something that has helped me as a perfectionist, is to do a room by room cleaning every year. I give myself a deadline of a couple of months to complete it, and go through a room or an area of a room. I declutter, and clean everything, under furniture, the baseboards, ect. So even when the rest of the house is a mess, I know that there is at least one area that I am happy with. And as the rest of the year goes on and the dust bunnies start to congregate under the furniture again, I tell myself not to focus on it because I know I will eventually get there again when I go through the rooms once again. The house is never officially done, but doing this once a year has greatly helped my sanity, helped me stay on top of clutter, and kept the house at a reasonably clean level.
Hi Kelly – thanks for commenting and thanks for this room by room idea. I like the thought that you always have at least once space in your home that is feeling perfect. Right my only perfect rooms are probably the bathrooms!
Great article ….. I find myself “wanting” too. I carry around a card in my purse with the phrase; “be more with less” and other quotes that inspire and encourage. It takes maintance to support this lifestyle. But it is easier now than it was 10 years ago when I began …. 🙂 Ok, the real reason I am commenting: I do not like chest of drawers …. they may look good, but usally the function is lacking. In addition, its a constant nag keeping the contents neat and accessable. So I keep all my underware, socks, etc., in shoebags that I hang on the back of the door in my closet. I pretty much hang the rest of my clothing and my shoes are on a shoe rack behind my bedroom door. So my bedroom is COD free …. easy functional (keep in mind I live in Florida and don’t have bulky winter clothing). Great for kids, hang at child height and teach indepence from the get go. Keep on writing, you inspire!
Pam
Interesting concept with the shoe bags. I actually don’t need the room of a COD but my husband does. My three feet of closet, and a short IKEA wire basket system with four drawers that fits in the closet, can house my whole wardrobe (my sweaters are on hangers).
I do love the space in our bedroom right now. Feels really decadent to see so much floor. Only eye sore is that our lamp is on the floor at the moment. Maybe we can get away with just a night table. Need to work on husband’s wardrobe….
Done??? Is anything ever done?
I count myself both bless and cursed growing up with a carpenter/farmer for a father — he and my mom built the house I first lived in — they lived there 17 years and it was never finished. We moved to an old farm house and, again, 17 years later and it and the farm are constant works in progress, every year you have to do the same things over again (prune, mow, pick, etc.). My dad says he has to wear blinders when he starts in the morning because there are so many things to do that he wouldn’t make it to the barn to feed the chickens in a week if he tried to do all of the things in the 60 meters between the house and the barn.
Blessed – taught me that even though we all desire to see things “finished” few things ever are for very long. If you aren’t working in stone, you will eventually have to do it again, you just have to keep plugging away.
Cursed – taught be to at least tolerate a lot of things half-finished — which means somethings that could be temporarily finished often aren’t just to start on a new project. For example, a basket of stuff in my bedroom that I haven’t decided what to do with … for month and months. It doesn’t have a home, I am not ready to get rid of it, so it sits.
Plus, he keeps a lot of things in case he might use it again — he often does find a use of the odd little do-dad. I developed the same habit of mind but I rarely encounter the opportunity to reuse a gear from a broken can opener (yes, I saved one for a l-o-n-g time) in part because I am not a handy person… at all…
In real life, no. In magazines or on tv, or on some blogs I used to read, yes, they say and show they are done.
Thanks for sharing your insight here and the good and the bad of accepting a state of change. And this is exactly why I am not a house owner – we are terrible with upkeep. Even getting things done around our condo is a chore, neither of us are handy and both of us are loathe to call repairmen. We finally had someone come in and repair or couch and bed. Both had been sagging/broken for over a year. I guess if things really bothered me enough I would fix them. The reason we got the couch fixed is that I sensed it was close to completely breaking/.
To me life is WIP, there’s no destination, no finish line, no-one timing or scoring you… I love reading your posts Rachel, there’s always something I could have myself written (although yours is better written!!) lurking which gives me a huge sense of comfort that I am on the right track and that there are women like me out there. They may not live two doors down, but I am not the only one who wants more from life than a whole bunch of stuff that means zilch!
This post contained two things of this ilk (although I do agree with all) – WIP (I always use this), and the crash diet analogy. Healthy relationship with food, healthy relationship with stuff and healthy relationship with life is needed. None of this happens in 12 weeks (as much of the diet industry would have us believe) – it’s a lifestyle change – there’s no quick fix. Attitude is a little thing that goes a long way. You have the right attitude, and I predict will go a long way.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Jo. I think I was having a low moment when I wrote this. Meaning I was staring at my pack ‘n’ play of to go items and wondering when they would ever be out the door!
I don’t believe in “done”. We’re always changing, learning and growing. We’re always improving. Balance and completion is something to strive for, but not something to attain. And even if you do attain it, it’s fleeting and temporary.
But the good news in this is that you can constantly make progress. You can constantly move forward. And you can find joy and fulfillment on the journey.
A few months ago I stopped subscribing to several blogs of the home schooling/uber-crafting/homemade nutella variety. While I know these writers are providing a slice of life, that their homes are not always filled with sunshine and felted slippers, I felt the bar they set was too high for me. As soon as I stopped enjoying the writing as entertainment and inspiration, as soon as I held myself up to these super moms, I felt like a failure.
I’m all about change and progress and learning – and right now accepting (and learning to enjoy!) that that is a perpetual state. But that part of me that was once a competitive athlete is always looking for a check box.
“Only dead fish go with the flow.” That is a good one. I’m stocking sayings like this away and using them to keep my motivation up when I get caught up in the “modern disease” of wanting more.
There was a great article in the NYTs the other day: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/your-money/12shortcuts.html?_r=2&pagewanted=2&ref=health
Good insight from a lawyer that left his job to write a novel for a year. He said that his choice made other people uncomfortable. That his choice to leave the status quo and follow a dream had made others examine their assumptions.
Currently my family is gearing up to look for a new place to live. There are four basic options. Rent, buy a reasonably priced house that needs fixing up, by a house that is well finished, buy some land and build a house. In my mind the order I have listed the options in goes from best to worst in terms of sustainability and my desire to own less. Unfortunately the order goes from worst to best in terms of my desire to have pride in what I own and enjoy the space I live in. This is a huge conflict. The question of whether we need to own a house is set opposite how great it would be to have a kitchen we can both work in attached to a space we can comfortably live in and be comfortable entertaining friends in? Currently we have money in the bank and are doing exactly what we want. The counterpoint would be having a big mortgage and being tied down to one place. Where is the line between want and need? How do I decide what is excessive and what is reasonable in a world with billionaires and people who live on pennies a day? I feel like the world is so out of whack I have no reference point for making decisions like this. I am so encultured by consumerism and competitiveness (which I am trying to get away from) that I find this whole process rather exhausting. I am like a dog chasing my own tail. I often think it would be so much easier to do what everyone else does (buy as nice a house as I can afford with 25 years of debt) and just be done with it.
At least you are open to the idea that these are choices. The norm is just to go with the 25 year maxed out mortgage.
I’m still not sure owning in Vancouver is the right thing. Sure, if you bought a while back, but prices are so inflated now. How much space do you want? How much space do you need? Good chance that whatever you come back to here will be a lot bigger than what you were living in previously.
Lots to think about. Can’t wait to see you guys!
A good question I always like to pose to myself when faced with tough decisions is “What would I regret doing?” I think it’s important to not base your decision on some hard-to-identify, and ultimately arbitrary, reference point as dictated by others or society. You are blessed with enough money to live comfortably; only you can decide how to be a good steward of your money. You have to choose what is best for you and your family, what brings YOU joy. From personal experience, doing things out of guilt (“but so many have less than I!”) or competitiveness will not make you happy, but listening to what your heart is saying will. And while living simply is a very desirable and virtuous lifestyle, and enjoying experiences rather than objects is more life-giving, it is not wrong to own something that brings you joy.
There is no magic bullet to help you go from living from one extreme to another. That’s probably what makes this shift so hard. I think you need to congratulate yourself on your progress so far and keep your eye on your goals – sometimes the big empty space is the goal (not the new furniture to replace the things you just got rid of). You’ll feel better if you let go of those feelings of regret and self-loathing, and forgive yourself for past wasteful purchases – but be wary of making those same purchasing decisions in the future. There’s nothing wrong with admiring and dreaming about beautiful things, or even owning beautiful things. But it should be affordable and not wasteful. The high of your great accomplishments from the first few months of paring down (the crash diet) is being lessened over time, but you’re still working towards your goals. Try making the feeling of deprivation manageable by imagining the sense of accomplishment you will get when you pay off your debt. Unfortunately, there really isn’t anything glamourous about minimalism – it is the antithesis of what we have been told by advertising is glamourous. But adopting this lifestyle long-term in a successful way takes being able to see past the sparkle of marketing and buzz-words – and being able to be happy and content without all that “stuff” anyway.
Wise, wise neighbour!
So true, there is nothing glamorous about minimalism.
I keep thinking about you with no mortgage and it gets me inspired. I’m doing a debt challenge next month to sharpen my budgeting and meal planning skills. Loved your comment the other day about making small things a treat by doing them a lot less frequently.
I wonder about what comes after the massive clearing and culling phase. I still get such a buzz from eliminating the unnecessary from our home, and can’t imagine what my life will feel like when I get to the next phase and can’t imagine getting rid of more stuff. In cynical moments, I even feel like the rush of getting rid of things is similar to the rush of acquiring things…
That said, I know there is no end-point to all of this. And consumption is an ongoing temptation. Like you, I also battle the desire for a sexy new house – my equivalent of the brushed concrete floor modernist townhome is a tall Victorian with 11 foot ceilings and crown mouldings. I just try to keep my new clothes-shopping mantra in mind when I start fantasizing about More: if I had (fill in blank), would it make me happier in the long run? The answer, almost always, is no.
take care,
Lisa
http://semimaterialworld.wordpress.com
More living? I hope that’s where we are getting to as we battle the last of our “stuff”. Rayna over at Suburban Minimalist had a good post up the other week detailing all the benefits to living with less. She’s farther down the road than I and one thing she said was, sometimes they are bored! And that it’s a good thing because she sees that she has time in her life to relax or be creative.
Your fantasy home sounds grand =) I do notice I think about home renos and such less now that we don’t cable. When I was pregnant I watched a lot of those home renovation shows. Guess it was nesting mode.
Does anyone ever really feel perfectly content with exactly how their life is? Isn’t that like self-actualization, the top (and unattainable?) of hierarchy of needs?
Bleh, I don’t even like psychology. But as far as minimalism goes:
The biggest factor contributing to my “done” feeling is having a small house with small mortgage payment. Knowing we will never be in trouble with house payments is a great freedom. And the small space is a great motivator for keeping everything cleaned out and not buying more.
Biggest factors against my “done” feeling: Student loans and car dependency. Both I feel helpless about because I married into the student loans and never gave a thought to my own while racking them up nearly a decade ago. They’re like a second mortgage and seem like they’ll never get paid off.
I also hate how much the cars cost. It would be impossible for my husband to get to work without one and very inconvenient in our city to live without one (with a baby anyway…) even though Minneapolis has been voted one of the top bike friendly cities! They must not have done that study during the months of Dec. – March.!
Not sure if people get the “done” feeling but I know some people in my life, very confident folk, who often proclaim things are “perfect” and “done” and just where they want them to be.
Student loans: I didn’t have huge ones but wow, finally paying them off this year felt amazing. It was about $18,000 and for many years I thought we would just be making minimum payments on them FOREVER. It will happen, you will get through them.
Mortgage: my husband and I talk every other day about how larger our mortgage is and how much less we would have to work to live elsewhere. Our home was close to $500,000 (and was considered a steal for where we live). Now, if Minneapolis was truly bike friendly maybe we would consider moving there =)
When is that baby arriving?
That Dwell magazine needs to be banned.
We just had a scary accident with my son because our dining table is bar height. We knew we were going to have to sell it and buy something more kid friendly but thought we could wait. I’m torn – I don’t want to get something just to ‘get by’ but I don’t want to spend $1600 on my dream Knoll tulip table either! Looking around for something second hand and avoiding websites/magazines.
I can relate to not being able to call something done. It can be very irksome. I’ve been reading Man vs. Debt, too, and find the financial transparency amazing. (I believe you recommended his site to me.) I’d like to get to that comfort level, though it might just mean going outside my comfort zone. I’m generally pretty private about finances and am not proud of how much money goes to cigarettes and movies for my husband. I need to get over it.
Oh, and I love the photo projects his wife has done with their belongings! I want to get to THAT point. Maybe that would be a “completion” point? I do think it is a way of life, but you don’t always have to be getting rid of stuff (though kiddo will continue to outgrow things), it will be about maintaining. Maybe if you look at it that way?
ManvsDebt: I’m also in awe of the financial transparency. I’m going to take a big leap next month and track our spending here and probably our debt amount as well.
I cannot imagine being able to photograph everything we own! Maybe a few years from now… and if we just stick with the one kid.
We are still in the very beginnings of our journey but I keep coming back to this point. We are still doing the first go round of clearing out and it is fairly easy. I aim to fill a large storage container each week to take to the flea market and I do it easily and without much thinking. But at the same time I am looking around and noticing items that will require thinking and hard decisions because of emotional attachments or financial attachments or just plain stubbornness. Add in two young children and I’m sure we will be a work in progress for at least the next 20 year LOL.
At first I found it discouraging. It’s never going to end so why bother. But then I stopped thinking about this as a means to an end. Instead I’m trying to see it as a journey. All of a sudden it becomes more exciting to see who I become and unbecome over the years of living with less.
I’ve found it discouraging at times too but I’m slowly coming around to the mindset of this is a lifestyle. Much like cleaning, you just need to make it a part of your routine. Life can be good and ‘perfect’ even when I have a bin full of items waiting for a swap meet.
Like your idea that it’s exciting to see who you become and unbecome. What a great thought!