Over the past month or so, I have watched many videos on what minimalism really is and people’s views on it. Minimalism is keeping only the things you need such as the essentials and things that give meaning; it’s about living a simpler life and having freedom. There are many misconceptions of what minimalism is because over the past few years Millennials took a particular interest in this lifestyle. Obviously, the older generation saw it as a joke saying, “They’re against consumerism,” or, “They’re only doing it to save money,” or, “They’re being too extreme,” which piqued my interest to find out more about the lifestyle.

Americans have more than 300,000 things on average in their household; an insane amount of objects that we contain in our homes and we most likely don’t even use half of them. No matter where, the majority of people are obsessed with having objects surrounding them thus making them a materialistic person. People are more and more controlled and obsessed with materialistic things (think Black Friday for example).  This obsession with having things controls how people live and what minimalism teaches you to do is let go of meaningless objects and live with what you need.

To get more insight on what Minimalism is, Janell Kristina, a Minimalist YouTuber who posts videos on what it’s like to live a minimalist life and her journey through it, gives us an insight on the reality of minimalism and things she learned over the years of being a minimalist. 

There isn’t a set meaning on what minimalism is because it can be different for everyone; it does mean keeping the things you need and not everyone has the same needs.

If you want to learn more about what minimalism is and get different views on it, there is also a documentary called Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things which brings you into the lives of different types of minimalists and offers more of an overall view of America’s obsession with wanting objects to bring happiness.

Also, the people behind the documentary are The Minimalists and they have a podcast based on different types of subjects and their opinions over it.

If you want to implement some aspects of minimalism into your life, there is a website called Uncluttered that is a 12-week course that helps you declutter your home of unnecessary things.