Delightful minimalism: a manifesto

The joys of "ascetic virtue"

Reminder: the next FF1 cohort runs May 1 to June 30.

As you may know from a past post, I earned about $36k a year and spent $25k year a year for 20 years, and was able to retire at age 42. I still live on about $25k a year, in part because it’s a habit and in part because it’s not only financial, it’s spiritual, philosophical, and environmental. I don’t know how to put this gently to you: we are in the midst of destroying this world and how much you do it is in direct proportion to how much you spend.

Because we’re selfish by nature¹ and we’ve been conditioned in capitalism to think we have to spend², most people don’t think that’s a compelling reason to stop spending. Someone in a past Financial Freedom cohort asked:

“Wait, so you are saying that with a life of ascetic virtue I can quickly (somewhat quickly) ‘retire’ to live a life of… ascetic virtue?”

I guess other people see the way I’ve lived my life as “ascetic” or “virtuous.” But to me, it makes total sense, for me, and for the planet. Here’s my pitch for “delightful minimalism:”

Delightful Minimalism: A Manifesto³

• Delightful minimalism means fewer belongings and less consumerism. (It does mean having a slightly pain in the ass computer and mobile phone arrrgh.)

• Delightful minimalism is getting to define your own concept of wealth. I’d rather be wealthy in time, the freedom to do what I want to do, with the people I want.

• Delightful minimalism is getting to take naps every day.

• Delightful minimalism is playing soccer five times a week and eating lunch with friends.

• Delightful minimalism is getting to create projects like The Appreciation Effect or the Reparations Underground Market.

• Delightful minimalism is traveling to see friends or family 3-4 months of the year.

• Delightful minimalism means having to work for money for 20 years instead of 40 years.

Delightful minimalism is paying attention to your impact on earth. There’s no link between people’s understanding or advocacy in climate change and their carbon footprint. You destroy in direct proportion to your spending. Wealthier climate change advocates are contributing more to the earth’s warming than poorer climate change deniers. If you really cared about climate change, you have to decouple your spending from your income. Drastically.⁴

“I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable” - Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2

Delightful minimalism means letting go of not-enoughness, both emotional and material. Our material not-enoughness is simply a manifestation of our internal not-enoughness.⁵ But not everyone is ready to end their addiction to not-enoughness.⁶

Delightful minimalism is choosing simplicity over complexity. Lagom over too much. Your enjoyment of a thing is in direct proportion to the attention you place on it. Delight in what you have, not desire what you don’t have.

The miracle of gratitude is that it shifts your perception to such an extent that it changes the world you see. - Dr. Robert Holden

Connected to the last two: stop comparing yourself to others. Consumerism is driven by wanting what others have. Comparison is a recipe for suffering.

Delightful Minimalism: A How-To

Some ideas on how to live delightfully minimal:

1. Delightful minimalism comes from the belief that pleasure comes attention, not cost. Joy comes from the meaning you put on a thing. Example: I got almost all the furniture and belongings in my house for free from friends. Nothing matches, but everything has a connection to a friend to it. Like every time I sit at my dining table, I can think of Jonny and Rebekah. Ascetic virtue can be fun! This is my house, filled with my friends’ furniture.

   

2. Delightful minimalism means getting greater joy from the most important things to you because you stopped paying attention to things that are sorta meh.⁷ Pay attention and give discernment to how things make you feel. Then don’t do things that don’t make you feel good. Example: I got off Facebook, Instagram, and all other social media because … well, I hated it. I hated how they made me feel: comparison, envy, outrage, and performativity. So I delightfully stopped.

3. Delightful minimalism means settling into a sense of greater contentedness by letting go of optimizing or maximizing life. You stop trying to get or do the best thing in the shortest time. You pay more attention to protecting your time. Example: I get less done per day, but am pretty OK with that. I only take non-fun Zoom meetings late mornings because I want to protect my early morning writing time, and I play soccer and nap in the afternoons. That means the only time I can take a Zoom meeting is late morning.

Of course life and work intrude on the idea of delightful minimalism (tell your boss you’re only available for meetings 2 hours of the day, ha!). But delightful minimalism is both a source and product of Financial Freedom. Push back on the system as much as you can! Don’t buy things, schedule things, or sell things that aren’t needed. Like preventing forest fires, only you can create delightful minimalism. Only you. What would delightful minimalism look like for you?

Reminder: the next FF1 cohort happening May and June.

1. Debatable, but not worth it here.

2. Culture is the thing we do without knowing we’re doing it - Zizek

3. Delightful minimalism is probably just another word for the Quaker testimony of voluntary simplicity, but a rebrand! You know, for kids:

4. “Sustainable purchasing” is a whole other topic, but suffice to say, capitalistic feel-goodism.

5. Based on 3% economic growth, we have twice as much stuff as we did 25 years ago, four times as much stuff as we did 50 years ago. How much is enough? Will we have enough in 25 years, when we have twice as much stuff? Enoughness is an inside job.

6. I provide financial-spiritual coaching for that.

7. We do a lot of things because we think we “should” or because other people are doing them. I think that’s part of social learning; imitating others. It’s the first step to learning what we like.