What I'm Learning from the Minimalists About Unsolicited Feedback
In which we learn to declutter and de-own
“You can’t just declutter, you have to de-own. You’ll love owning less because owning less is always better than organizing more.”
—Joshua Becker, Becoming Minimalist
For years (years, I tell you!) I’ve been circling, holding, thinking about and carrying around this idea of being a soul minimalist.
Because while I don’t consider myself a minimalist in the most common sense of the word (a person who intentionally lives with fewer possessions), I find the principles of minimalism to be a compelling framework for life: not just the lives we live in our homes but the lives being lived within us.
One of the concepts of minimalism that is particularly compelling to me is the relationship between organizing and decluttering. We can get tricked into thinking we’re minimizing when really we’re just moving around the stuff we don’t need and don’t use. One of my favorite minimalist principles is one I’ve heard Joshua Becker say, that it’s not enough to declutter, you have to de-own. The power of organizing stuff into pretty baskets is that it tricks you into keeping stuff you probably could just get rid of.
What is the soul equivalent of the pretty basket? What might I be unnecessarily holding on to that may seem important only because of how I’m categorizing it in my mind?
Being a soul minimalist doesn’t mean we empty ourselves and become a blank slate on the inside. But practicing soul minimalism (to me) means being vigilant about what I allow in and how long I allow it to stay there.
Just because input presents itself doesn’t mean we have to keep it. I learned that first hand just a few short weeks ago. Here’s how it played out:
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