(originally posted on 07/03/19)

I posted this about two years ago, but deleted it not long after that for some reason, I was probably in a bad mood and decided I was never going to be a minimalist again, and two years down the line, I would class myself as one of the most extreme minimalists… but I know some people have asked to see this in the past, which was meant to be read BEFORE my other post, called “How I Found Minimalism – Eighteen Months Later” but thought I would repost this anyway as I still worked hard on it back then, and it’s nice to have all my minimalist writings together as a quick reference.

How Did I Find Minimalism?

*Written in 2016*

Lots of people have asked me this, and even though I have known the answer for a very long time, it is only now that I have decided to share it with people. It’s not one of those soppy, motivational stories people love to hear about, and well, to be honest, the story is is long, complicated and a little… odd.

Originally it all started when I was about nine or ten years old. At this time me and my family lived in an adverage-sized three bedroom home, on a small cul-de-sac on the top of a hill, where the sunsets looked amazing… this was a photo I took about this point in my life, at about age eight, when my lifelong passion for photography started:

Very picturesque, am I right? Yes, indeed it was… on the outside. But, inside of my house, it wasn’t picturesque at all… Don’t get me wrong, it was clean and all, and even somewhat tidy, as my parents were never dirty or messy people. They were much worse, they were hoarders. And they knew they were hoarders, and still do to this day.

Anyway, back to me, when I was about seven or eight years old, my sister moved out of the family home for good. I then decided, as a small child, and now the only child in our somewhat large home, that I wanted to claim my sisters old bedroom, as well as still keeping my original bedroom. And of course, as the youngest (and most spoilt child) I got my wish.

My house may sound small from the description, but it was originally a four bedroom home, the previous owners had knocked down a few walls to make three bigger rooms, instead of four smaller ones. If you ask me, smaller rooms are better. Knowing what I know now, it would of stopped us all from getting more stuff, and we could of made some extra cash housing lodgers in the spare rooms. But nope.

My sisters room was the smallest of the three so I decided I was going to use that room as my ‘sleeping chambers’ and now my old bedroom was going to be used as a large toy room. So thats exactly what we carried out, I had bunk beds and a few of my favourite toys in the small room, along with a small TV and a VHS player (yes I’m old…) while my bigger room held the rest of my toys.

And that was all great, I had my large wooden dolls house and my many dolls with toy cots and prams, I had my bratz dolls and barbie dolls and my large collection of Build-A-Bear animals with wardrobes and clothes for them, and so many boxes of Polly Pockets, my toy box full of the Happy Land play sets (pictured below), as well as Bob The Builder and Scooby-Doo play sets.

Oh, and a guitar which I couldn’t even play.

This is a picture of my Happy Land play set, just before this event, and what my room looked like before my sister moved out:

As you can tell, every corner in my room was cluttered. This picture was taken when I was about seven, in about 2006.

And yet, there was still more, there were miscellaneous objects that were, well, kind of just… there. But that was how I was brought up. I thought that it was normal to harbour dust on everything because half of the stuff you have, was never used. But now I know that although that it may be the social norm, it is far from healthy.

Anyway, having two bedrooms automatically made my accumulate a lot more toys, my parents would notice an empty space in my toy room, and just like any other materialist, they would feel compelled to fill it, so that they could say that their child had the most toys, or the biggest doll house.

They wanted their child to walk into their room and make them feel like its their own personal toy store, except everything was all theirs. And wasn’t that every childs dream? Of course- it was mine too, until we made a decision…

My sister who had moved out of the family home all them years ago had just given birth to her first child in early 2009. And me, along with my parents, were very close to the baby. And we made the decision just before the baby arrived that that she would live with us most of the week as my sister was still a teenager and didnt want the responsabilty of a child at that age.

This is a picture of baby Lexi, just one day old. Her first night living with me and my parents (and ten year old me on the right):

So my parents and I thought that the best room to make into baby’s nursery would be the small room that I was currently sleeping in. But then we had a problem. Over the years of me having two bedrooms, the amount of things I had were almost doubled, so moving everything back into my old, medium sized bedroom was out of the picture.

So what did we do? Did my parents make me sell or donate some of the things that harboured the dust? Nope. we simply moved me… as well as my many dusty belongings, into what was my parents room, and not only the biggest bedroom, but the biggest room in the entire house.

All my items seemed to fit in there well and everything was great for about three years, until one day, I was laying at the bottom of my new metal bunk bed when I looked at my cluttered room and I suddenly realised, in the blink of an eye, that I didn’t like all the mismatch drawers and cupboards that kept all my junk under control, and I didn’t like the piles and piles of DVDs and VHS tapes that took up my floor space.

I didn’t like my wardrobe full of clothes that I didn’t even like. I didn’t like the fact that my top bunk bed was unusable due to the amount of stuffed animals that were on there, as I simply had nowhere else to store them.

I realised that the amount of stuff I owned didn’t bring me joy, and in fact, 80% of it was an inconvinience. But of course, I was so young, how could I know what I wanted when I was just twelve or thirteen? I automatically started my decluttering process.

It wasn’t too extreme, as at this point, I still had sentimental attachments towards almost everything. I was a vulnerable kid, with not many friends at all, so my weekends were usually spent hosting lonely tea parties with myself and my fluffy inanimate friends.

But I did downsize my stuff a ‘considerable’ amount.

And while I downsized. I had more time to watch my niece grow.

Let’s fast forward another year, I was going through some terrible things in my early adolescent life. Where I’d had enough of everything; my annoying parents, the bullies at school, homework, my maths teacher Mr Fat & Creamy (that’s what everyone called him lmao don’t ask why it just sounded like his real name) and well, everything else that would irritate a teenager at that time; getting game over in Flappy Bird, forgetting your Tumblr login, I don’t know.

So my fourteen year old self decided to go on a little adventure. Alone.

But then the thoughts ran in my mind… if I were to leave home, what would I do with all my stuff? Sell it of course. Most things were trash, and I threw away about twelve bags worth of stuff, and I sold the rest. I didn’t make much money, but financial gain was never my main focus.

I wasn’t left with much; my large SnapBack collection, a lot of clothes, and that guitar I still couldn’t play. But, once I went on my one day long adventure, worried everyone, got found and returned home, I was happy. Really happy. Was I stupid? Yes. But we all make stupid mistakes as kids, and in some occasions, can allow us to learn things about ourselves.

Me in one of my many SnapBacks and my niece:

I was happy. Happy that I had accomplished not only my mission to board four trains and travel 200 miles, but also realising that I didn’t need anything other than myself and the clothes on my back.

It was at that moment, when I was in the car on the way home from my long adventure, and when I arrived back into my empty bedroom at one o’clock in the morning , that I realised I wanted to travel the world. It filled me with a feeling of pride and adrenaline- one that I had never felt before.

But for then, I had to stay in school and live my normal life, so I wouldn’t get bullied more than I already did. But it was when school and college had both ended that I really dived into minimalism, once again, by accident after a planned trip gone wrong.

I have this… person in my life, she is different from anyone else I had met. I really fell for her. I was smitten. But she lived 9,000 miles away. I met her online.

I decided that because I had finished college, I was going to go and see her. I wanted to be with her. I wanted to travel to Australia.

I knew I wanted to be with her for the rest of my life. So I asked her to be my girlfriend. It was over text, might seem very unromantic back then, but I still, and always will, have the screenshots of that.

She said yes by the way.

And I cried.

Happy tears.

Anyway, when I was almost nineteen, I told her I was going to get my passport and visa and go and see her. Then I realised, if I was really going to give up my life in England to (hopefully) live near her one day, what would I do with all my stuff?

It was then when the little minimalist button that had been stored in the back of my mind had resurfaced. I’ll sell it all, and this time. For real. By this time me and my parents had moved out the family home and downsized to a two bedroom apartment. And everything I had that I hadn’t yet used or unpacked were still in boxes in my room.

One day I got a pair of scissors and a large trash bag, and I ripped and chopped up anything and everything in those boxes. I was determined to see my now girlfriend. And after being housebound from agoraphobia for so long, I quickly realised that this was my lucky break.

All my clothes went, and yes, I mean ALL of them. I went out and purchased two T-shirts, two pairs of pants, and two hoodies, and that was it. I owned one pair of shoes after selling or giving away about thirty other pairs. I gave all my colouring books and notepads to my now seven year old niece. Gosh, how time flies.

I sold my computer and my iPad and two of my three 3DS’s. Why would I need three of them when I could only play one at any one time? I sold all my dusty ornaments and game merchandise and I finally let go of my large hat collection.

Say farewell to them all. These pictures of my hats was taken a few years ago:

Why did I have a separate laptop for gaming? I didn’t even “game”. And that guitar I never learnt how to play? I asked my parents to get rid of it when I wasn’t looking, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. My excuse: “nah, I’ll keep that, I’ll learn to play it some day.”

“Some day”

I had five pairs of black underwear and five pairs of black socks so I wouldn’t have to spend hours finding the pairs to them. And that was it. I could fit absolutely everything into a medium sized tote bag.

Months passed and I still had the desire to declutter. And even when I had nothing left, I would find something I no loner needed, and then I helped my parents somewhat do the sme thing. But they were not really understanding the concept. Their clutter was irritating me more and more each day. And thats when I found the label, the concept…

Minimalism.

I watched one documentary and I was hooked. I realised this is what I had been searching for my whole life, and the thought of wanting to pack one bag and be homeless, or ‘homeful’ as Colin Wright says, made my heart happy.

Knowing you’re not tied down to a two-storey house with a front and back garden with a morgage to pay made me feel happy. Knowing that I didn’t have to work in a dead end nine to five job, five, six or even seven days a week to pay petrol for a car I now know I don’t have to own made me feel happy. All the lies and expectations I was getting told as a kid “you have to study well to get a good job” or “ you have to save all your money to get a good car” were all wrong. That may make some people happy, but knowing it wasn’t something I HAD to do, eased so much anxiety.

I’m sorry but what qualifications do I need to be a full time traveller? Exactly. You dont need the poshest car or the fanciest home to be happy. Happiness lies in your heart, with other people. My home is in her arms. I dont care where we are. I could be the poorest person in the world, but would be the proudest human alive if I made my way to be with her.

I didn’t want to go back to college to then work until I died to pay rent for a house I would probably never own. I wanted to explore. I didn’t want to be a prisoner in an office nine to five every. Single. Day. i didn’t want to be filling out taxes. I didn’t want to spend my life watching TV. I wanted to write and write and write about my experiences.

I wanted to take photos and selfies of everything and everyone around me. And share them with good people. You can’t do that when you’re spending over half of your life paying for a house which houses more stuff then people. If you have no stuff, then you can spend your money on more memorable things. For now, everywhere I go, my house will come with me, because between myself and my backpack, I am my home.

Home isn’t your collection of candles, or your wardrobe full of clothes, home isn’t owning seventeen towels fora family of three, home isn’t all the meaningless things on shelves that hold no puprose. Home is you. Home isn’t the bricks and cement you live amongst. Home isn’t the tiled roof or the shed in the garden.

Home isn’t the poshest dining table or the fanciest cooker and fridge. Home isn’t the novelty chocolate fountain or carrot chopper you got as a housewarming present from that neighbour you don’t really know and haven’t really known for the past six years youve lived at your house.

Home isn’t a personal toyshop for your kids, they dont want that, they want a few special things, but most of all, they just want their parents to work less, they want to see their parents more, they want to be able to play with they when theyre not stressed of thinking about bills or replying to emails.

That’s home. Not four hundred barbie dolls of every size, shape and race. Home is colouring with your child, not buying them so many colouring books that they’ll never even use them all. My home is me and who I love, not where I live.

I’m me, and although my parents could never understand how I can quite happily live without seven thousand pieces of clothing, and they’ll never understand how or why I literally ask for nothing at christmas, and they’ll never understand the peace and hamony I get from seeing empty space, and they will never understand why my shelves are now bare. But thats okay that they don’t understand. I’m doing it right. I’m happy, and theyre not and I think that alone explains everything.

Maybe one day, when they’re old and grey, they’ll realise they didnt need all them bedsheets or candles, or two freezers for too much food for three people, when half of it would get wasted anyway. They’ll realise they didn’t need fifty cans of baked beans at any one time, or that seventeen sweatshirts are too many sweatshirts.

But even though I have tried to tell them how happy minimalism has made me and how it helped my depression and anxiety in less then two years, they still refuse to believe that minimalism is nothing more then a bunch of loons living in a wooden shack in the middle of the forest. Maybe they choose to stay sad, I don’t know, but I’m going to live my life the right way.

My bag with everything I own in it, on my bed (which is just two mattresses on top of one another) and there’s nothing else in my room:

And as I’m sitting here writing this, wearing already half of my wardrobe, I have never felt happier and richer in my life. I have found myself, and I know now that this is the best way to live. Why anyone would choose differently is beyond me, and that’s why I never really converse with people who are not minimalists, unless I really have to. Unless it’s her, I love her.

I try to be understanding and respectful, its a shame that they think they are better then me just because they have a house or a car or more clothes. If you ask me, thats a really toxic mindset to have. And thats how I know I didn’t find minimalism…

Minimalism found me.