The More of Less
I’ve been home for a few weeks now — I decided to fly home for the month before my full time work begins to spend time with family and relax, focusing on self development and ridding myself of the distractions that New York City holds in the summer. It’s been very fulfilling thus far; I’ve gone golfing with my father and his friends, picked vegetables in our garden with my grandparents, made steam buns with my grandmother and mother’s college friends, and spent a lot of time reading and reflecting on how I want to approach life post-grad in a city like New York.
Whenever I’m quiet and in my room, I am either cleaning or reading. Cleaning because I’m amazed at how much I’ve accumulated in my childhood bedroom, and cleaning to clear my head and start making my room a place in which I can feel productive. My father has been doing the same around the house: our three-car garage can no longer fit more than a car due to how much we have amassed over COVID, so he spends hours a day reorganizing. That got me thinking: I am awake for 10-12 hours a day. Why is 3-4 hours of it dedicated towards cleaning and reorganization? It has gotten less and less relaxing after each day, opening a drawer of mine only to find it overflowing with random knick-knacks and expired beauty products.
Cue: Minimalism.
I live with a family of 7 people, this month with 11 because my mother’s 2 college best friends are visiting from abroad. Of course, raising up three generations and kids of vastly different personalities require a wide assortment of personal belongings. We also live in a very traditionally Chinese household, where abundance is viewed as wealth— we never run out of food (I wake up to 3 fully stocked refrigerators) and always have extra of a particular item in case something runs out (Costco is my mother’s store of choice as well). I think a blend of traditional Chinese values and lifestyle with American consumerism has resulted in an overflowing garage and a life of abundance for my brother and I, though I don’t believe this is the best way of living.
While cleaning out my bookshelf, I found a book with a receipt from 2016 inside. The receipt reads as follows:
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (A required read in my sophomore year English curriculum)
Start where you are: A book for self reflection (I remember this book being very aesthetically pleasing. I must have been starting to think about college applications and needed some inspiration for my essays.)
The More of Less: Finding the Life You Want Under Everything You Own. (Huh! Looks like my father must have been doing the same spring cleaning ordeal when I was 16.)
I quickly found the More Of Less and started reading the contents. The author, a pastor from Arizona, was cleaning out his garage with his son when he realized that the stress of cleaning and reorganizing items he never reached for was preventing him from spending quality time with his family or living the life he wanted to live: one of generosity and service. He was buried under boxes in his garage instead.
The book highlights the importance of minimalism, and owning LESS, not necessarily owning nothing. Becker tells stories of nomadic individuals, who sell their most prized possessions to find fulfillment in travel, while others who rid themselves of over 1,000 items in their food find themselves to be more financially stable, fiscally generous, and happy. A quote that I’ll forever remember: “Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.” Guilty as charged, I remember staying up late many nights freshman year of college to be an on-call tutor just to buy fast fashion clothing that lasted me a few weeks. They all eventually made their way into my donation pile, which was accumulate to multiple trash bags by the end of the year.
Yet now that I’m home, I am living off of five outfits I’ve been mixing and matching, a few toiletries, and my electronics. I brought nothing but a carry-on suitcase home and left everything in my storage unit in NYC, but I haven’t felt like I’m missing anything since being home. I am capable of living a life of minimalism, so why don’t I do so when I’m on my own?
Ultimately, the book was a call to action that my 16-year-old self was starkly aware of. A life of minimalism is one where I can maximize my giving to others who may need it more, maximize a life that promotes sustainability rather than excess, and maximize my financial independence. When I don’t have a thousand dollar bag I’m working for, I can instead save a larger % of my paycheck, or spend it by donating to a cause I’m passionate about, or treating my friends to lunch more often. I look forward to taking steps towards becoming more minimalist, and finding a community to keep me accountable!
