The Beginimalist
My birthday was a couple of weeks ago, at the end of June. I turned 55. As the day started, I thought, “how the hell did I get here?? Wasn’t I in college just the other day??” Some days, I feel every single moment of those 55 years; other days, I feel essentially the same as I did in college, or as a young adult.
As I muse about reaching the double nickel milestone, my oldest brother texts me: You are now eligible for the senior discount at Goodwill. Enjoy!
Great. Now I can go buy back all of the crap I’ve donated over the last several months.
You see, I’ve been clearing out junk and decluttering for the last several months because I’ve embraced minimalism. At least, I have embraced minimalism in theory. In practice, I am really just a beginner. I am a beginning minimalist. I am a beginimalist.
I’m not quite sure now how I started down this path, but I can clearly remember when the lightbulb went on and I suddenly realized that minimalism makes sense. I was reading Joshua Becker’s book, “The More of Less”, and it hit me…the key isn’t in organizing the stuff you have…the key is in having less stuff.
WHAT?!??
Are you kidding me? I’ve lived for more than a half century on this planet, and I’m only now figuring this out? But honestly, isn’t that exactly how epiphanies work? I mean, the word epiphany means “sudden revelation or insight” so it shouldn’t surprise me that I didn’t get it until I did get it. Imagine…a life with more time for the important things, more freedom, more creativity, more adventure, more connection, along with less stress, less worry, less of all the things that drain your spirit. All by getting rid of the extraneous stuff that is cluttering up your life. I’m in.
Now that I have gotten it (or acknowledge that there might, in fact, be something to get other than what I’ve gotten for the whole of my adult life so far), I need to decide what to do with this new idea…this thing called minimalism. What does minimalism look like to me? How do I shed the stuff that is no longer useful to me (or, to be honest, probably never was useful to me) but still hang onto the things that are meaningful? To that end, I’ve decided to tackle a job in my home that has been on my to-do list for at least 3 years…I’m going to clean out the garage.
In a couple of weekends, I’ve already made some significant progress. I’ve filled a Bagster®, I’ve taken a large carload of stuff to my local hazardous waste collection site, and I’ve cleaned off the workbench so I can begin organizing my tools. There is so much more to do, but I’m very encouraged by what I’ve been able to do so far. Not bad for a beginimalist, wouldn’t you say?
