How Minimalism Creates Space for Wanting Better
Recently I have been in a spring cleaning kick, letting go and shedding the weight of winter and ready to spring new life in to my physical and mental spaces. I am dreaming up big plans for our vegetable gardens, drawing up drawings for a chicken coop and scrolling Wayfair for new lighting and area rugs. I used to think of these plans and dreams as a frivolous distraction from a desire for a simple life. I thought I was not being a real minimalist if I still wanted. And that unless I could control my desire for more, I would not be able to find true joy or happiness.
I often think people dismiss the idea of minimalism for that reason. That in order to be a minimalist you must only own 100 items, have a tiny home with grey/white walls and no contents, no children and never own a car. Buying into the idea that if you have goals and desires, wants and dreams you will forever by unhappy. But as I have come to see it there is more to it than that. I read a blog by Ingrid Fetel, author of Joyful, and she echoed this sentiment “the truth is more nuanced. It’s not that wanting is bad, but that so many of us live our lives trying to satisfy the wants of others without really understanding what we want for ourselves. We pursue accolades to satisfy the wants of our parents, we acquire material things that to fix what marketers have told us is “wanting” in us.’
Choosing a life of minimalism does not mean a life of no wants, material possessions, or dreams. We can still have desires, dreams, wants. Gosh, we have 5 children, a large home and yard and also, I still want the hot vacations, the welcoming home, the chickens and garden. I want a life of learning and growth, of challenges and adventures. What has changed for me is that I have started to want better.
When I desire a coffee table for my family room its not so I can copy the most recent style magazine or Instagram worthy living room, its because I want a warm and comfortable space for my family and friends to play bored games late into the night. When I shop for new winter jackets, pants and skis and multiple pairs of mitts, its because I want our family to enjoy hours of play and adventure outside in the long cold winter. I want chickens and gardens to provide good food and nourishment for our family. My wants are in alignment with the values and desires for my life in this season.
Minimalism is a tool to assist you in finding the clarity to want better. Minimalism allows you the freedom to let go of the clutter of the cheap substitutes- to begin to feel deeply the desires of our own soul not the voices of the outside world, and the wants of others. When we are able to turn down the noise and the clutter of the outside world, we can find true joy and happiness in our own true desires and we begin to see how you don’t have to choose more or less but just to want better.