Buy Experiences, not Things: Why You Should Adopt A Minimalist Lifestyle in Your Early 20s!

Having More’ isn’t synonymous with Happiness

It all starts with end-of-monsoon sales and Black Friday discounts. We fall prey to the depressing advertisement (Irony of the moment is I work for an advertisement company)  which doesn’t fail to make us feel miserable about ourselves.  There is always something that we should be buying, upgrading or replacing to be ‘Happy’ as per every industry giant.

As per certain researches, we do three things on most days of our lives: Work, Watch TV and Shop. We spend hours in front of our work desks making money. Reaching home, we are surrounded by an endless list of brands making us feel that we are not enough as we are.

At the end of the day, we have more clothes than ever, however, we can’t decide which one to wear every morning we wake up. The idea of having ‘more’ is daunting. Scary. Threatening for our planet in more ways than one.

Let’s take an example of Fashion. The concept of fast fashion is on the rise. New designs are releasing every week.  More clothes are purchased. More clothes are discarded.

Do you know what happens to the clothes which can’t be shredded & recycled due to the type of polymer used in their making?

They are dumped in the landfills forever, polluting our earth!

This is how our economy works. If you see this very interesting video Story of stuff, you will be mindblown by the facts around buying behavior of people in America.

If every Indian (Read developing countries) begins to use as many resources to match an average American’s lifestyle, we will need soon need three more planetsto fulfill our needs.

Now, all of that was a really heavy read. But I hope you get my point.

Well!

Choosing to be a Minimalistic was a choice I made

Two years ago I started to make money. It felt crazy good to have so much money at my disposal all of a sudden to use and buy (Read Hoard) things which I always window shopped back in the college.

I went on a shopping spree for months, buying and collecting clothes which I wore once in a while and got back to my comfy pair of jeans and a few dresses of my dear choice.

Did you see what was happening? I was hoarding stuff and this “stuff” started to fall off my wardrobe every now and then as my three door wardrobe started to run out of space.

This is when I watched this awesome documentary ‘Minimalism’ on Netflix.

Minimalism DOESN’T mean you have to be frugal, mind you. It is not giving up things/services/experiences that you love.

“There’s nothing inherently wrong with owning material possessions. Today’s problem seems to be the meaning we assign to our stuff: we tend to give too much meaning to our things, often forsaking our health, our relationships, our passions, our personal growth, and our desire to contribute beyond ourselves. Want to own a car or a house? Great, have at it! Want to raise a family and have a career? If these things are important to you, then that’s wonderful. Minimalism simply allows you to make these decisions more consciously, more deliberately.” says Joshua Fields Millburn

I started to give away, lessen the number of clothes in my wardrobe (stuff may differ from person to person, in my case stuff is clothing) & kept the ones I really really liked. This didn’t stop there. I was mindful of the things I was buying, making sure that I will truly and absolutely use that something I bought.

How Minimalism helps?

And when you declutter and do away with all the things that you don’t need:

You will have more time at your disposal to do things you enjoy (As you will spend less time in managing, cleaning, sorting unnecessary things)

You will have more money saved at the end of each month to spend on experiences

You will not buy to please people and stay in trend. You will make a purchase only to meet your true needs

You will not associate happiness with things which is a never-ending vicious cycle & will leave you only unsatisfied

Moreover, you will have a greater control over your life. You will not succumb to the peer pressure, you will not be enslaved by unnecessary depts, you will not require credit cards to meet your living standards.

Experiences over Things

I spend more than 80% of my income on travel & other experiences and they have left me with the most fulfilling and satisfactory feeling. I have traveled across India to more than 5 states in the last two years as cut down all my other unnecessary spends on things which I never really needed.

What do you think about Minimalism? Do you wish to follow it as well? Tell me all about it. You can get in touch on Instagram.