5 Problems With Minimalism as a Minimalist

This year will be 10 years that I've fully committed to minimalism and even now I still do have my struggles. Struggles that sometimes make me wonder if I've taken minimalism too far. I knew this is something I needed to address if I started to feel guilty anytime I bought something or brought something new into my life because even as a minimalist this is a little too extreme. So today in this video I wanted to share some of the problems I faced as a minimalist and my advice for any of those who may have dealt with or are currently dealing with the same thing. But first if you're new to my channel thank you for stopping by. Here we talk about minimalism, frugal living, tech, and things of that nature. So if that sounds good to you and you end up liking the video be sure to like and please vote off the subscribe button at the next tribal council. Let's get started. The first problem I have with minimalism is the feeling of guilt whenever I spend money. And to be honest I've dealt with this problem for pretty much as long as I've had a job. But it was definitely exacerbated when I became a minimalist. The buyer's remorse every time I bought something just became really annoying to deal with. And in my experience it was pretty much with any expense that wasn't a routine bill or food. Even if it was something for work that would make my life easier or make me productive in some sort of way. Or something that checks off every requirement I set for myself in regards to spending. I think this became a problem when in my mind saving money was so important that any form of spending was bad. And although I do still struggle with this to this day I try to tell myself that these rules I set for myself when it comes to spending like the 30-day rule and bringing things in that make me more productive for example are worth trusting. I've had my best experiences with minimalism through intentional purchases which are naturally fewer rather than just focusing on making zero purchases. The next thing is the feeling of guilt whenever I bring anything into my life. And to be completely transparent this is probably the thing I struggle with the most out of anything in this video. And I think that's because I've attached so much of my identity to being a minimalist that I have a serious feeling of imposter syndrome whenever I'm considering bringing something new into my life. This has led me to making things more uncomfortable or harder to deal with just for the sake of owning less. A perfect example is with this tripod I bought a few months ago. I've legitimately been using the same cheap tripod for the last five years and in order to get these flat lay shots that I love filming I had to balance it on a slipper and point the camera straight down and it was just really annoying to set up and sometimes the legs would be in the shot. I finally decided to upgrade to a higher quality tripod that folds in a way that is meant to get these types of shots. And my point in telling the story is that it's overall just made my life so much easier when filming and I would say it was rather justified and even then I felt guilty after buying it. But taking my own advice from a few years ago if something makes my work or productivity easier or just more enjoyable in general it's probably justified. Receiving gifts. Receiving gifts as a minimalist is something I actually get asked about quite often. The questions are either what to gift a minimalist or how to tell people you appreciate it but would rather not receive gifts at all. And thankfully this is something I'm a lot less stingy about than I used to be and now I can receive a gift and feel grateful without feeling guilty for obtaining new potential clutter or something I didn't really need. Essentially for the first long while I lived as a minimalist I never really looked forward to holidays or exchanging gifts. I just didn't want to bring in new clutter and I especially didn't want to declutter gifts because I really just felt like a terrible person doing that. So I would end up keeping these things for an indefinite amount of time. There really wasn't a process or an exact moment when I became okay exchanging gifts as a minimalist but I really just considered how fortunate I am to have people to do that with and experience those moments with. That combined with a deeper communication with people about how I don't want to bring clutter into my life really helped me start to enjoy those holidays and exchanging gifts even as a minimalist. Wardrobe restrictions. The minimalist handbook is pretty clear about wearing black t-shirts exclusively but I've slowly stepped away from this rule. Way before adopting minimalism I still found choosing clothes and outfits to just be so exhausting. So I opted to wear the same thing every day. If you look at my videos for the first couple years it was the same gray t-shirts in every video and for the longest time that was the end of it. A few years later there were these really nice well-made t-shirts I came across that were actually sent to me and I wanted to try out anyways. They were Murano wool so I knew they were high quality and I remember feeling like such an imposter because they weren't a plain black or gray t-shirt I've been wearing for years at that point. And it's not even like they had logos or designs or even stripes on it. And even though they were rather subtle mute colors I still felt like I wasn't a minimalist anymore because I strayed away from those uniform dark colors. It took me some time to realize how silly this actually was and that minimalism made me more intentional with what I wear by leading me to focus on higher quality, making less decisions, and just buying multiples of my favorite version. And years later I still have those exact t-shirts that made me feel like an imposter in the first place. Frugality can undervalue quality of life. And this is something I am sort of on the fence about and I've touched on a little bit in the past. I've went on often and loudly about breaking expensive habits and unnecessary expenses. But when taken too far frugal living can really inconvenience my quality of life even if it is saving me money. I could think of several times I've held out on replacing broken items that would definitely make my life easier just to save a little bit. Like literally just a few weeks ago I replaced the HDMI cord that was plugged into my camera that was hanging on by a thread and I was constantly having to wiggle it because the connection would always disconnect. And those are the sort of inconveniences I'm talking about. Where a $9 new HDMI was able to fix this problem, I figured why not try and get a few more months of use out of it. Overall I just really think there's a fine line between living frugally and completely inconveniencing yourself and depriving yourself of rational purchases. There's a woodpecker outside. I feel like I should end this on more of a positive note and say that even sometimes where I do find problems with minimalism, becoming one has overall been one of the most important if not the most important decision for myself. So hopefully some of the things I talked about resonated with you and gave you some ideas of how to deal with those problems if you come across them for yourself. Let me know down in the comments if that's the case because I'd love to read about it. Anyways as always I appreciate the time you spent here and I appreciate you watching. If you did like this video and you like this type of content be sure to like and consider subscribing to my channel and I'll see you next time.