Millennial Minimalism: Simplifying When Its Simplest

I finally got around to watching the documentary from last year by the Minimalists, Josh and Ryan, and I enjoyed it! It reaffirmed everything I already believe in and talk about here on the blog.

I couldn’t help notice though, that every person speaking about the concept were 5, 10, even 40 years older than myself.

Why was there no voice of a millennial?

Maybe someone young, supposedly naive to real life, only at the beginning of their adult-ing journey, wouldn't appear a credible minimalism advocate...

Or maybe it’s because so many people had to have a decade or more of adult-ing, a long period of working, acquiring and consuming, before they felt the call of minimalism.

I suppose I had my mid-life crisis super early, 22 to be exact, when my first ‘corporate’ type job sucked the joy out of my life and the hope away from my outlook.

There was nothing too terrible about the job itself (I worked in a bank) and its a job many people do happily for years, their whole lifetime. But either way, it was still a job where I felt like I was inducted in the hall of life cynicism and I was supposed to just deal with it and make the best of it (with my debit card).

I had aspirations, and they weren’t being met even slightly.

I had skills and abilities that were irrelevant in that environment.

I had something real that I had worked hard for and truly thrived at, my degree in Media, and yet I was working in a customer service job with a heavy dose of sales thrown in.

It all felt like a whole load of bullshit to be frank.

My life did not suit me, and I wore my new reality like a straight-jacket.

Over the next year I found myself changing, responding to what I had been through; a depressing job where spending was my only release, and where my mental health suffered immeasurably as a result.

Now 4 years later I call myself a minimalist, albeit one who remains a work in progress, but the belief is there, the true passion for living a simpler life. And I’m not 45 and talking about it in a documentary, because I luckily got to this place a little sooner than some of my counterparts.

I was just finding my feet, only just stepping onto the carousel of adult life, when circumstances conspired to create a disillusionment, within my own mind, at probably a similar time in the late 2000's, as my older counterparts too begin to debate the idea of mindless consumerism.

I feel fortunate that events conspired when they did, to afford me a clear and open passage into the minimalist mindset.

The concept was increasingly providing a true solution for so many individuals feeling disengaged and disenfranchised, and I knew I had nothing to lose (except of course, most of my stuff and my consumerist habits).

I like to think that the sooner and earlier you welcome the minimalist mindset in, as a millennial, the better it is for not just you, but all those around you, including your unborn distant children, and your ageing parents.

Soon, as in now.

Before the boxes of 25 toys make their way to the attic, before they are even bought.

Before you find yourself feeling gut-wrenched, clearing out 10 rooms of your parents belongings.

Before you feel the need to spend more than you earn to finance a bigger life, and enter into debt.

Before you climb the property ladder and invest in a house with more rooms than you can hope to fill.

Before you slump down, surrounded by reams of things in your own space that don’t even belong to you, on top of those that do.

Before the task of change appears too giant to even begin.

Simplify your life and your lifestyle, while its still simple enough to do so. Set a precedent for generations to come and generations behind you, and change the way the world works.

Thanks for reading!

Hannah here, one half of NomaderHowFar. I love reading, the beach, proper fish and chips, and a good cup of tea. But I mostly like to chat about minimalism, simplifying your life, the beauty of travel and sometimes I get a bit deep. Get to know us here!

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