Minimalist Philosophy: Just be like a fish in water once in life.

Yuanshen Publishing House/Just once in life: A proposal for a free life by a New York gold medal illustrator

In my long-term travel life, I have been constantly trained in a skill: the inability to give up. necessary things.

This is really an ability that is forced to be developed. When we first started traveling, we didn’t want to be like hard-working backpackers, carrying around seven kilograms of luggage around the world. We still want to have a certain quality of life, without having to wash and wear three T-shirts every day. I still want to always have tea to drink, and I still want to do some yoga wherever I want. Rather than traveling around on a budget like backpackers, what we want to do is "live everywhere". But in just the first month, we discovered that even if we try not to rush the trip, if we want to make a worthwhile trip to a country, we still have to visit more than three places. Even if we live in a city for a week and drag two large suitcases Two large backpacks are still very annoying (ok, I'm being polite, in fact, the suitcases were still overweight in the first place.)

During the trip, I donated used clothes for recycling at least twice. When packing at home, I always think, "I can take this with me." Each item seems to have a chance to be worn out. However, when I go on the road, I often find that less than one-third of the clothes are worn. These "... “Being prepared for emergencies” ends up becoming a burden when moving from point A to point B, a gravity training when checking into an Airbnb without an elevator, and stress on the legs on the bus.

So I would eagerly look for second-hand clothing stores that collect old clothes like I look for Asian supermarkets. After clearing out six kilograms of clothes and giving away yoga mats, I breathed a sigh of relief, and at the same time thought: "Why did I bring so many things with me in the first place? Are you stupid?"

After having to throw things away a few times, I became very picky about buying new items. If it doesn't have a "sense of destiny", I would rather not buy it. I don’t like to have things that I don’t use, I don’t like to accumulate redundant things, I hope there are no redundant things in my possessions, and I even start to feel bothered by receiving gifts.

With limited resources, I no longer focus on money. Although money is indeed limited, the more obvious limited resource is space - my suitcase is only this big, and low-cost airlines do not need to add weight. So much for the restrictions.

Treat space as a limited resource

If you live at home, it is easy to ignore the fact that space is a limited resource, and you will think "This product is on sale, first "Buy it first" and "free shipping if you spend more than 1,000 yuan, then see if there is anything else you want to buy". As a result, the home becomes a place where things are swallowed up and accumulated. With too many things, the space becomes cluttered. "I don't know where I put the comb I bought last time, so I'll buy another one." - Using limited space as if it were infinite, the accumulation of clutter is the inevitable result.

My parents are very bad at throwing things away. They think they should not throw away things if they are still in good condition, or if they are only slightly broken, they can still use them. But at the same time, they are not good at organizing things, or their brainwaves are too weak. It’s easy to shop. There are often too many items in the house that we don’t use, such as rice spoons. We actually have seven or eight of them at home. Growing up in such a family culture, I was originally very bad at throwing things away, but my long-term nomadic life has really restructured my thinking: the limited resource is space, not money.

The change in decision-making caused by the change in thinking may have originally been "this dress is a good deal and can match my pants, buy it", to "a woman's wardrobe is not always missing one piece of clothing, mine is The total is thirty pieces. If I want to buy this piece, I have to give up one piece from my closet to make space." After changing to regard space as a limited resource, consumption decisions will become more cautious. The items you want to add must be truly qualified to enter my space before they can be released. Although I did not initially hold the idea that money was limited and could not be spent carelessly, the actual behavior was to reduce a lot of unnecessary expenditures, and the money spent was more surely on the cutting edge.

The implementation of minimalist philosophy is not about forcing oneself to reduce material desires, but a change that occurs naturally after the perception of "limited resources" changes.

It is often in more extreme situations that people realize what is important. The philosophy of minimalism learned in the nomadic life is not only reflected in material things, because the concept of minimalism is not just "the reduction of things", but can also be applied to other aspects of life. For example, another resource is often mistaken for unlimited: time.

The concept of minimalism can help you clarify what is important.

When you begin to realize that such resources are limited, your decision-making will also change accordingly. This is another particularly obvious scarce resource in tourism - if you can only stay in this city for five days and then move to the next city, and this life style is a long-term process, then you will be happy every day Planning. We will carefully arrange the scenic spots we want to visit, and we will not visit every spot, because energy and energy are also limited; the same goes for working time, work with low efficiency will be given up first, because the time spent on it will be spent on other things. The opportunity cost is to do other more profitable work, or even our travel itinerary. At the beginning of the trip, we also conducted interviews with local illustrators, but as the issue of "limited time" became increasingly important and could not be ignored, we had no choice but to make a choice.

The concept of minimalism can also help you clarify what is important. Many things are actually not as complicated as you think. Asking "why" every time you peel off the details can lead you to the core after eliminating noise.

Take our wedding as an example. Because Ricardo and I come from different countries and cultures, we do not take for granted the customs of "taking wedding photos" and "buying cakes". We are fortunate to rethink and design a wedding ceremony that suits us. wedding. And these are the whys we ask ourselves:

1. Why a wedding?

Because I want to announce the news of my marriage to my relatives and friends and celebrate together.

2. How can we celebrate together?

I want to have a formal and sacred wedding ceremony, and then my family and friends can celebrate together.

3. What kind of preparation can achieve "let relatives and friends rejoice together"?

Food, wine, music.

4. What kind of ceremony is formal and sacred?

…

As I kept asking, I found that we did not follow any of the red tape or fancy pomp and ceremony of traditional weddings, because they are not the most important thing. In the end, it only took two weeks and less than $2,000. We got all kinds of help and food support from friends. It was the simplest but also the most heartwarming and beautiful wedding.

You can hear the message only after the noise is removed. The philosophy of minimalism is not about having very few things, but more importantly, through the process of simplification, highlighting what you regard as valuable, in other words, what is important to you.

When you get used to using your resources only on worthwhile things instead of wasting them on trivial things, you can most efficiently achieve a balance that satisfies you. I am still practicing these.

Let’s take another example related to clothes. In the process of looking for a dressing style, if you want to achieve “no personal style”, that is, buy whatever is popular now, and have a little bit of every style. Give up nothing. On the contrary, if you can simply abandon the ones that are not so sexy and not so suitable for you, you will soon be able to get closer to "your style".

Once we started traveling, we even dropped our phone numbers. Because it is impractical to buy a sim card every time we go to a country. In this way, we will accumulate a bunch of sim cards, and there will not be many opportunities to actually use them. We only need the Internet, but all situations that require the Internet can be handled in an airbnb with Wifi. First load the map, check the restaurant, and contact the other party for the time and location. If we really need internet on the way, we will go to McDonald's or Starbucks.

I have not had a mobile phone number for two years now.

When you realize that time is limited, you don’t want to spend a lot of time on meaningless things.

When you realize that your mind is limited, you will not want to hold on to negative, annoying emotions and thoughts.

When you realize that everything is limited, you will start to cherish yourself, "If I desire something, I have to face it."

If you are someone who has not yet found what you want to do, or someone who has silently found it but has been ignoring it for various reasons, please try to change your perception of "limited resources" to The spirit of minimalism helps you get rid of the essentials and keep the essentials.

Your mind, time, and life are like your room. This space is limited. If you want to arrange it in a way that makes you feel relaxed and happy, you can’t keep all the clutter. You can only keep the most. important.

If you are thinking about whether you should give up or keep this thing, you can start to ask: "What is the meaning of its existence?" "Does it serve me?"

When you After you let go of the trivial things that don't apply to you, the space will appear as it should, and the way you should appear will also appear.

Author introduction:

Cinyee Chiu

Freelance illustrator, picture book writer and illustrator.

Graduated from the Institute of Applied Illustration at the Maryland Institute College of Art in the United States. After traveling around the world with her husband for a year and a half, she currently lives in Colombia.

In 2018, he was shortlisted for the World Illustration Award. In the same year, he won the 60th Advertising Gold Award from the New York Society of Illustrators, and illustrated the shortlisted film for the 29th Golden Melody Award for Best Album Producer.

Author of the picture book "Stone of Youth".

Please search: Cinyee Chiu on Facebook to join and pay attention to your health every day! LINE＠ ID: @ Subscribe to the Healthy Love Live audio and video channel and read health knowledge more easily: /beauty/article/45495 Keywords: