During my occasional frequent stumbling around the internet, I came across an article. A well-written article, mind you, but one that I disagree with one hundred percent. The title of the article?
Why You Should Write Your Minimalist Manifesto
The article says that everyone who strives to be a minimalist, or is moving in that direction, should basically create a manual.
A manual on how to be a minimalist.
This manifesto should contain your goals, and a list of things *not* to do. Things that needlessly waste time or complicate your life.
This guide should also be referenced daily.
Wow.
As I tweeted earlier today, if you need a manual to simplify your life, you’re doing it wrong. You’re making it too hard. You’re missing the point entirely. Referring to a guide every day, with every decision I make…. this is not simplicity.
There is no set definition of minimalism. Simplifying your life means whatever you want it to mean. It means something to me, and probably something entirely different to you. Heck, it means something different to me today than it did six short months ago.
Creating a manual / manifesto / whatever you want to call it does nothing to help simplify your life. It’s an added layer of complexity to an already complex life. If you cannot easily decide if you need something in your life, no guide is going to make that decision for you.
Goals and minimalism don’t go hand in hand. In fact, one might consider them to be very contradictory. This silly goal that some bloggers have of owning a set number of things (100 seems to be popular these days) is absurd. It’s chasing an arbitrary goal, a meaningless number. Is this something you really want to have in your “manifesto”? Is it a worthy goal in life?
Before embarking on any mission, before following anyone’s advice, ask yourself just one question.
Does this make my life simpler?
I would say that creating a minimalist manifesto would certainly not make your life simpler. It would do quite the opposite, which is not what we’re striving for.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
What a great way to stir up some discussion. I hope Brett from Step1minimalism will come and share his thoughts too, but here are mine.
Basically, I agree with some of what you write in this post, but still think a minimalist manifesto is a *good* idea:
First, yes, minimalism is about simplifying your life and should not make it more complicated. And if you do make your manifesto too complex, it will indeed be counter-minimalist.
But at the same time, changing habits is not easy. Even when you are convinced that being minimalist is what you want to do (buying less stuff for example), to go from thinking that way to living that way doesn’t happen overnight. And there might be times when you are ready to give up and just go back to being a just another consumer again.
For times like that, I think writing and *occasionally* reviewing your manifesto is beneficial. As I wrote mine, I looked for the big picture and made it very short:
- I wrote down the reasons why I want to be minimalist, which I can then use as a resource for deciding what minimalist ideas apply to me and what don’t (the 100 items thing is one such idea that can only be measured against your personal definition of goals for minimalism).
- Then I wrote some short paragraphs about what it means in different areas of life. For example that I don’t buy things that I don’t need. Pretty self evident and simple things which I don’t have to look up every day from that manifesto. But still, thinking them through and processing them to a manifesto made them more actionable for me.
So, maybe you don’t need a manifesto, and you definitely shouldn’t make it so complicated that you have to get back to it every day (or worse yet, every time you make a decision). But it helps in clearing your thoughts. And that’s always powerful.
Thanks for the alternate viewpoint.
I think we definitely view our minimalism differently, which is awesome since I think minimalism can and should mean different things to different people. I am a very list-oriented and goal-oriented person and having things written (or typed) out is always a big help to me.
I’m not sure I used the word manual at all, but I actually like that term now. Compared to the stereotypical manuals that come with new electronics my minimalist manual is almost the complete opposite. A simple, one-page document listing the few things I want to be constantly striving towards and the few things I know to be time-sinks and temptations for me in order to avoid.
If someone has gotten their life to a point where my philosophy on this seems unnecessary, they are probably already past me in terms of minimalism. However, my site is written for those who are just beginning their journey or are looking for additional advice as they progress.
Thanks for the link and the constructive criticism.
(By the way, I completely agree that an arbitrary number of goals in a random number of days is silly.)
Brett- thanks for stopping by. You’re right – having different views of what minimalism means is fantastic. It just goes to show that we can all accomplish the same goal in our own way, using our own methods.
Even though we disagree on this one, I love learning about alternate ideas / viewpoints. It’s by far the best way to learn.