Minimalism

I have to dedicate this book review to my friend Carla Anderson, yoga teacher extraordinaire, for whom I had the great pleasure of house sitting for on one of Mark and my adventures.  She and her husband have the most inspiring home.  There was so much to learn about from the healthy lifestyle they lead to the conscientious way they handle garbage, recycling, compost and all of the homemade items like nutbutters and sourdough bread.  It was truly a jumpstart to realize all of things we could be incorporating into our lives.

One day, I was looking on her bookshelf – as reading is one of my favorite passive adventures.  I happened to notice a little book on her shelf called Minimalism.  I had seen the same exact picture as the cover on Netflix featured as a documentary with the same name.  I had been meaning to watch that too.  I was immediately intrigued and started to read it.  At 121 pages, it was an easy one or two day read for me at most and I thought it would be interesting.

I found myself immediately sucked in.   Let’s face it, I’m a mom of four, I have a regular job that can be long hours of the day and night, I’m a weekend warrior, I really haven’t gotten to a point where I’m ready to pare down my stuff and go minimalist.  I was really more intrigued by reading about the authors lives (Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus).    They seem to have their own joyful adventures, so I thought I might get some ideas of new places to go or things to do.

But I found the book was much more inspiring.  I learned and thought about the ways that being minimalists helped the authors:

“Minimalism has helped us in several ways, including:

Reclaiming our time

Ridding ourselves of excess stuff

Enjoying our lives

Discovering meaning in our lives

Living in the moment

Focusing on what’s important

Pursuing our passions

Finding happiness

Doing anything we want to do

Finding our missions

Experiencing freedom

Creating more, consuming less” ~Minimalism