Over the past three years, I tried countless things to create a simpler, more minimalist life. To name a few: I cleared out my entire apartment, lived out of a backpack (twice), went on a pilgrimage, and radically changed my consumption habits.
But I also did a lot of stupid things. I bought stuff I didn’t need, took minimalism too seriously, and overly focused on aesthetics. Luckily, these “mistakes” were the best teachers. Because sometimes, realizing what not to do is more valuable than the opposite.
Here are three fundamental principles that emerged:
- Awareness
- Effortlessness
- Cessation
These minimalist principles mark the foundation of my perspective on a simpler life. I wish I’d learned them years ago, and I’m convinced they’ll stand the test of time. So I suppose they deserve some deeper explanation.
Table of Contents
1. Don’t Start with Decluttering — Do ThisInstead
Contrary to popular belief, a simpler life doesn’t start with selling your stuff, creating a capsule wardrobe, or furnishing a minimalist apartment. Instead, it starts with a tiny mental shift:
Awareness.
Everyone can throw away some stuff and pretend they’re a minimalist. But the real change needs to come from within. In fact, sustainable change is only possible if you become and stay aware of your habits and thought patterns.
And yes, I know. Awareness is this gooey, vague term. So what can we do with this yogurt of information — especially regarding minimalism?
For me, the best place to start was to become aware of consumer psychology. See, we live in a pretty crazy world. Every day, we’re confronted with sales tactics that make us buy things we don’t need and algorithms that drill down to the lowest part of our brain stem. It’s estimated that we see up to 10,000 ads per day.
The awareness of our psychology as consumers doesn’t change that per se. But it does create a pause between an ad that captures your attention and your decision to act on it. Looking back, here are three insights on consumer psychology I wish I’d known earlier:
- We buy stuff based on emotions, not rational arguments. We feel emotionally attracted to a brand/product first and only then come up with “rational reasons” that justify our emotions. This gives us a sense of control when, in reality, we tend to take the bait.
- The deal of a lifetime is an illusion. Clever marketers create imaginary pressure to sell their products. This can be as simple as a countdown, telling you that an offer ends in 2 hours, 32 minutes, and 16 seconds. But it could also be cherry-picked social proof or fake bargains.
- We consume to feel better. When we feel safe and sound, we’re more disciplined, which makes it easier to defuse deceiving sales offers. But when stress, loneliness, or fatigue impair our willpower, we’re particularly susceptible to the classical marketing formula: “Your life would be so much better if only you bought this product.”
Just knowing that these schemes exist can already make a huge difference. And even if you fall for a treacherous tactic, cut yourself some slack. Seriously. Even the most mindful consumer can’t always resist an army of savvy salespeople. If you feel guilty whenever you blindly consume something, you’ll soon feel frustrated. (Which can lead to more mindless consumption.)
The lesson is simply this:
Internal change must precede external change. Sure, you can declutter your entire life. But if you don’t change your consumption habits and awareness first, you’ll always run in circles. Which is neither minimalist, nor efficient, nor fun.
2. Strive for This Quality in Relationships
Relationships are a highly overlooked topic in the spheres of minimalism.
Many gurus exclusively talk about material possessions (or their absence). But the truth is that relationships — not things — are the biggest contributor to a fulfilled, meaningful life. Humans are at the core of human well-being. Who would’ve thought, huh?
It’s not hard to recognize this: Whenever I feel disconnected from others, my knee-jerk reaction is to distract myself or consume. However, when I feel fulfilled in my relationships — including the one with myself — I’m much less prone to numbing myself with impulse purchases or candy bars. It seems that when we feel enough, we have enough.
But how can we simplify relationships?
One approach that I really like is the idea of “effortless friendship.” It’s not that this rules out hard work and commitment. It’s simply about becoming more intentional about relationships and looking at them through a lens of mutual affinity. Reciprocity. In this sense, you’re not desperately chasing, clinging, or radically cutting out people you dislike (well, unless they’ve done something unforgivable). Mostly, it’s a self-regulating process. It has this quality of abundance.
There are people in my life I’d completely lost touch with. But then, out of the blue, we reconnected stronger than ever. Conversely, there are people I used to be super close with, but now they don’t play a role in my life anymore. And that’s okay. If the time is right, we’ll reconnect. If not, they’re fine. I’m fine.
What if loneliness hits?
Full disclosure, that’s incredibly tricky — at least for me. Strangely, my loneliness fires up this craving to cling to people who don’t care about me or aren’t good for me. I tend to sacrifice my values and self-worth just to keep bitter bonds alive. So in times like these, I try to remind myself of a simple truth:
The only thing worse than feeling lonely is feeling lonely in a relationship.
And here comes the cherry on top: once you can apply this effortlessness to personal relationships, your relationship with physical clutter also becomes less clingy. You can let go because you’ve experienced that you’re enough.
3. StopSeeking
Some time ago, I lost my keys. This was rather odd because I never lose my keys — or anything, really. I keep them in the right pocket of my pants, so I always know where to look. But this time, they were gone. So I panicked. I went through every pair of pants and shorts I own, dumped the entire laundry basket on the floor of my tiny room, and did that thing where you drum on your whole body, hoping to conjure the lost object.
Nothing.
So I gave up.
I sat on the floor, buried my face in my knees, and started accepting the fate that I’d never leave the house again. When I looked up, the clouds had parted, and a few sun rays glimpsed through the window. It was at this moment of letting go that I saw something twinkling on my desk.
I found what I was looking for because I had stopped seeking.
Call it cessation. And if you ask me, it’s the ultimate minimalist principle.
Sure, it’s fun to improve. Optimize. Make progress. But at some point, we must stop searching for the next best thing and start living with whatever we have right now. If all we ever do is search, we’ll never be able to tell if we’ve found what we were looking for. It’s like holding a pond of water in your palms — the harder you squeeze, the more water will slip and squirt through your hands.
What does that look like in practice?
For me, it starts with small, daily things. For instance, when I want to read a book, I try not to search for The Ultimate Book that will change my life. Instead, I turn to a novel that has been sitting on my shelf for years, patiently waiting to be opened.
But it goes deeper than that.
I often plague myself with existential questions — like: what are we all doing here, skating on this rock we call Earth, floating through space and time? What’s it all about? But asking these questions catapult me into the same kerfuffle as scouring for my keys. It’s only when we stop seeking, changing, optimizing that something meaningful and substantial can emerge.
It’s like the pause between two breaths.
The Paradox of Simplicity
“This sunset is nice, but it would be even nicer if the clouds had a dash more purple and the sun was 12% larger” — nobody ever said that sentence unironically while feeling satisfied.
The same applies to creating a simpler life. The great paradox of simplicity is that the more you try to simplify and streamline, the more you risk overcomplicating it.
So yes, climbing the mountain of minimalism is nice. Applying minimalist principles is helpful. But the goal should never be to reach the peak (if there even is such a thing) in the fastest time possible. Instead, the experience becomes far more worthwhile when you choose a comfortable tempo, take occasional breaks, and appreciate the view.
