“We buy things we don’t need ,with money we don’t have
to impress people we don’t like.”
To buy or not to buy?
Have you ever had an experience that made a light bulb switch turn on inside you and made you stop, pause and rethink all that you’ve been doing in your life?
I have.
I spent 2 days filling up 3 large boxes that day, boxes to send home to Davao via LBC. I went through each item meticulously, deciding if they should be left behind or belong to the box that would go home with me.
I could just have tossed out any random item.
But no, I held on to each item and asked myself the same question, for what seemed like a thousand times in my head,“ Does this item bring me joy?” true to form and in Marie Kondo style.
I remember dragging these boxes to a street corner where the nearest LBC shipping service was, queued up for almost an hour in the scorching heat before finally spending another half an hour inside the office to have everything weighed.
Fast forward, 3 years later, those three boxes sit snugly in a dark closet, untouched. I don’t even remember what I put in them.
My life had taken a different turn, and the vision of me dragging those boxes in the streets of Guadalupe three years ago still leaves me bewildered to this day.
Little did I know that pursuing a life of freedom also meant I had to become a different person. To become a “free human” and work anywhere meant I would become a digital nomad who travelled light with very little possessions.
And so today, I want to share the profound joys of owning less “stuff” and hope to inspire you with a life that is more intentional and authentic.
1, I have stopped becoming like Gollum in The Lord of the Rings.
“My precious…”- Gollum
We either sneer at or pity this fictional character from the famous fantasy novel, but we have a lot more in common with Gollum than we want to admit.
Minus immortality and the constant stroking of “my precious”, we think we
own the things we buy. But in reality, these things own us, bind us and enslave us.
I once saw a grown person at the mall, carefully put and snappily dressed , drop to the ground wailing and kicking, obviously losing his wits after losing his iPhone to a sneaky thief. People who saw him thought he looked stupid, but he could easily be one of us.
A dear relative loses sleep at night thinking about the car he parked outside
the gate. Is it safe? “What if some random bystander causes a scratch while
I’m sleeping? I need to build a new garage. I have to work on the car insurance asap.“
I have my passport, my laptop for work and my atm. These are the most important things to me at the moment. I keep this list of “important things”as basic and short as possible and constantly remind myself that while they are important, they are also replaceable.
Just like money, things and properties are worthless on their own. But there is
a danger of unconsciously handing over the power to these “things” and they
start to own us.
2. I became a more authentic version of myself.
Theodore Roosevelt once said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.”
I would go one step further and say comparison is the thief of self-worth.
Things fill our lives and we often associate our worth with having more of them. Consequently, we associate having less things as to mean having less worth.
In my twenties and thirties I told myself I was a rebel and that I would never get caught up in mainstream society’s notion of what a successful life should look like.
But despite my efforts to appear different, I was still like the rest,
still spending a lot of emotional energy comparing myself to others. . .the way I looked, the shoes I’m wearing, my work status, and career achievements, etc.
I found it difficult to find myself amidst all the clutter.
But with more space now, I can breathe and truly answer the question, “What do I want?” It is a question I ask myself everyday, just to make sure I am intentional with my actions. The answers have become so simple on most days that I literally laugh at myself for being so crude.
“Today, I want to fill my hands with dirt and look after the plants”, or, “Today, I want to eat chocolate cake and read The Psychology of Money,”
It is a crude life but one that I’ve come to love.
3. I healed my relationship with money.
“No one is more impressed with your car as much as you are.”
- The Psychology of Money
The Psychology of Money is the single most life-changing book about money that I’ve read. Surprisingly, there is nothing in it about investing or being good at crypto currencies.
Instead, the book focuses on the soft skills when it comes to dealing with money.
In the book, there is a story about “The Man In The Car Paradox”.
When you see someone driving a nice car, you don’t really think, “Wow, the guy driving that car is cool.” Instead, you think, “Wow, if I had that car, people would think I’m cool.” Subconscious or not, this is how people think.
Explained in another way, the author wrote a letter to his newborn son:
“You might think you want an expensive car, a fancy watch, and a huge house.
But I’m telling you, you don’t. You want respect and admiration from other people, and you think having expensive stuff will bring it. It almost never does—especially from the people you want to respect and admire you.”
Knowing why we want to buy and before getting ourselves into a lifelong debt for the thrill of displaying a new car in the garage, is a path to self-discovery and healing.
There is a beautiful energy around money, one I’ve come to understand with minimalism.
4. The joy of having less has become a mindset.
Deciding to become a minimalist is not something that happens overnight. More often than not, it is a decision that comes out of necessity, out of a desire to break free from the things that bind us.
The act of consciously buying only what truly matters to us often comes with a shift in identity and a change in mindset.
Buying is an emotional decision rather than anything else.
Once I discovered I was free from the emotional bond I have with the things that I bought, I started to want the same freedom for other areas in my life. . .
people I keep, tech I use for work, apps on my phone. . . everything has now become about quality over quantity.
FOMO or the fear of missing out no longer had space in my life because my days are now filled with experiences that I genuinely enjoy, like travelling, reading, writing, drawing and just being creative.
5. I became free.
This year’s theme for me is definitely “freedom”.
This has been my north star for the past three years and the filter for all my decisions.
If something will contribute to more time and space, or if something makes me smile from within even if I’m the only person who understands why, then I say yes to it in a heartbeat.
And in line with freedom and after discovering minimalism, I have lost the desire to own things, or work hard to own what I don’t even want—all to impress someone at the office, or even my family.
Dave Ramsey, financial advisor and New York Times bestselling author says:
“We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.”
I only used to dream about the freedom I have now, without the pressure and just doing what I want to do. It feels like I’m on a day off on most days, and I only work with people whose values I align with.
Embracing minimalism has definitely made me understand the phrase-
“ Less is more.”
6. I am now able to travel more with the extra savings.
I have the unfair advantage of being unmarried with no kids, living in my parents’ house and working remotely.
What I consider as an “unfair advantage” may be some other person’s disadvantage. But, we’re all driven by different motives and freedom was mine.
There is no need to buy a house, no need to buy a car, no need to buy more clothes to wear for work, and no need to have kids so I can fit the acceptable standards.
Buying less has not only freed up space in my house, it has increased my savings and contributed to my financial independence.
I am now spending more for experiences such as travelling and seeing the world.
I rode hot air balloons in Cappadocia and watched hundreds of them take off at sunrise, watched the fire dance from the cliffs of Uluwatu in Bali, marveled at the white snow-capped mountains in Zermatt, Switzerland and gasped at the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
Long after the experience of travel is gone, the memories and the sensations associated with it continue to thrill and excite me.
Traveling has made me see things in a new light, made me more appreciative of where I live, but also growing ever more curious about how people at the far ends of the earth live and exist.
7. I have become a better decision maker.
Having fewer things in my physical space and consequently having more space in my head meant I was no longer carrying the burden of too many contrasting ideas all the time.
What used to be buried in the clutter is now front and center, and it has become easier for me to see what my priorities are and what I truly value in life.
There are fewer things that require my attention and I’ve stopped juggling pros and cons in my brain. I am making decisions faster and have put an end to the constant tug of war inside me.
And I forgot where I heard this, probably from some wise understated guru on the internet, but there are no right or wrong answers. We will most often find ways to make things work regardless of the path we choose.
I never thought I would say this because I like to live large, but simplicity and having less has made me rich and abundant in beautiful and surprising ways.
Summary
As I look back on the series of events that led me to embrace a minimalist lifestyle, I am astounded by the realization that I have become “more” by acquiring less.
In a world that often measures success by the accumulation of stuff, I found my worth in simplicity and authenticity.
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