Ten years.

I’ve been a minimalist for ten years.

Well, I have fallen off the wagon a few times but, that identity has never truely left my side.

It’s been a wild ride. It’s been a decade of love, loss, highs, lows, fear, excitement, and so much adventure.

I’ve decided this will be my last minimalism update post. Maybe I’ll do another one at 20 years- if we’re all still around then.

This is the only photo I have of me from ten years ago. The profile picture of an instagram account I can no longer access. I was sixteen, maybe just seventeen.

I’m now twenty-seven. As of two months ago. It’s easy for me to look at old pictures of myself and hate who I became. That’s a feeling I’ve been struggling a lot with over the past few months.

Specifically… regret.

Not with every part of my past, but, enough parts of it to matter. Nothing too big, but enough small things to make it still seem overwhelming.

The Alex in that photo above was scared, and tired. I had made choices back then, as a kid, that still circle my mind to this day. Not the wisest of choices, but did any of us make the wisest decisions at sixteen?

This is me today.

I have the same smile. But, something seems… different. I thought, at seventeen, the world was scary. At twenty-seven, I knew the world was scary. And those are two very different things.

The anxieties I had at seventeen somewhat corrected themselves, over time. I became unwell shortly after that. Which was the time, in the past decade, I had the most dreams.

To travel the world, to learn to drive, to move out of my parents house- and out of my tiny hometown, to buy a camper van, to become someone that wasn’t scared.

To be someone…

Someone.

Within the past decade:

I still can’t drive, but as of TODAY, I’ve lived alone for FOUR years.

I have yet to travel to every country, but I’ve been to the other side of the world THREE times.

And I may still be an overall fearful person, but I don’t think I’m scared anymore. Behind that smile is someone much stronger than the tiny person I was at seventeen.

I may be fearful of planes, but I’ve been in the air for almost 100 hours.

I may be fearful of people, but I’ve performed with almost 1000 pairs of eyes staring at me.

I may be fearful of independence, but this is my fourth year of it!

But… am I still a minimalist? After all this time?

That’s a question I have asked myself a number of times. But I always come to the same conclusion.

Yes.

I said it all those years ago, and I’ll say it again today.

Life isn’t your collection of mugs, hats or candles.

Life is you. The breath in your lungs. Your smile, your passion. Not your possessions.

Minimalism, I’ve learnt, is much the same. It is not how much you have. It’s not about owning the least about of shoes, or living in the smallest space.

It is, when all is said and done, who you decide to be. The people you spend your time with, the hobbies you spend your time on. Your passions you dedicate your life to.

When we die, it won’t matter if we owned 2 mugs, or 20. Or if we had 3 shirts or 78. A studio apartment or a 34 bedroom mansion.

We’ll be gone. That stuff won’t be ours anymore. But our friends will still think of us. The carpet won’t. Our passions will live on through generations. Our coffee maker won’t.

To be a minimalist is to live with intention. Don’t get rid of that mug collection if you hold a weekly ‘coffee and catch up’ for your whole street. Because, one day you’ll be gone, but those memories won’t be. And sure, the memories aren’t in those 29 mugs, but without them, there may have not been any memories at all.

And, I think having regrets is just the byproduct of making memories. You can’t have one without the other. And I’ve learnt lately, that’s… okay.

The past ten years have taught me that being a minimalist doesn’t mean shrinking yourself down to nothing, it doesn’t mean little.

It means to build yourself up to the highest of highs. Be as MUCH as you can be.

Fearless.

Bold.

Proud.

Adventurous.

Loud.

Caring.

Courageous.

Evolving.

Affable.

Delectable.

Kind.

Funny.

Genuine.

But mostly…

The most YOU.

This is a photo from the same day as one of the above photos. I hated this photo at first. The photographer caught me in mid-laugh at something the guy next to me said.

I didn’t look perfect. Or polished.

But, I looked… like me.

Someone being… for once in a long time…

Not scared anymore.

And that’s all that I’ve ever wanted.