The Pros And Cons Of Leading A Minimal Life

Image via Complex Original

Pros:

Time

You will save so much time, man. Like, save it from a burning building on live TV with an onscreen make out to cap things off. You won’t even know what to do with all the time you save by having only eight articles of clothing to pick from. Not to mention the extra minutes you’d normally spend putting the brick on two bowls of cereal when you, instead, yank a turnip out of your front lawn before hopping on your unicycle (two wheels is excessive). Then you can ride to your job which probably has nothing to do with minimalism, but you surely have the cleanest, barest desk in the whole goddamn place. I bet people think it’s available like you quit. Did you quit? It was on your terms? I know you got fired. That’s why you can’t afford cereal.

GTFOH Power

When your life is pared down to the bare essentials do you know how easy it is to just pack up and leave? For good? Like, without a trace? Because every trace of your existence fits in a hemp tote? Because I don’t. I have so much shit keeping me where I am. Send me a postcard telling me what it’s like to disappear and have everyone think you’re dead. And whether that makes your student loan payments go away because that thing about me being stuck here has little-to-everything to do with that.

Less Shopping

I like to shop as much as the next guy who deflects shopaholic jokes from his girlfriend, but it’s almost a second job. Do you know how much of my lifespan I’d have back if I never read those daily (and now nightly?) Gilt emails, only to decide they have nothing good? Yes, shopping is its own time-sucking, coin purse leech that scratches the itch, like, 30% of the time at most. The other 70% is a mélange of regret, hissy fits over shitty fits and mental bartering with yourself over whether that thing you bought online is really worth sending back just because you’re a little fat right now and it doesn’t drape so much as distend.

Less Clutter

You’re studio apartment is gonna feel like a spacious ballroom. (Skiiiiirt. Ball Room.) once you scuttle that vintage hat trunk that smells, your second couch, your apothecary table and…actually, ctrl+alt+del everything you don’t need to survive. If you’re committed to this noise you should be sleeping on a Japanese futon, eating out of the same bowl for every meal and sponge bathing every three days. Your girlfriend already left because you told her to drop a few el-bees so no one’s gonna be around to say you smell. But now that you have more room than you need, move somewhere smaller because extra space isn’t minimalist, bro.

Cons:

People Will Think You're Copying Kanye

And you are. That’s the only reason we’re having this conversation. The freddy prince summer catch is that you have to do it anyway and somehow convince them Yeezus had nothing to do with it. Worst case, Ontario? You go back to your old way of life. People will like you less, sure, but having people in your life other than yourself isn’t minimalis,t so wrap your ear-lips around that logic-popsicle. Sorry, someone handed me three coffees and a keyboard.

You'll Look Poor

Zero ways around it. If you’ve got three alphets and two pieces of furniture people are going to think you’re financially ruined. Which, if you want, can be your defense when people accuse you of copying Kanye. “It’s not minimalism, Dad! It’s poverty!”

Less Variety

If you’re someone who needs to wear, eat and experience different things, minimalism might not be this year’s candy pink stove. Some dead geniuses claim being dull with your routine life allows you to be extraordinary in other areas. But let’s be realistic, we’re all average and it’s okay if the highlight of your week is Sriracha on your scrambled eggs, just to switch things up.

Laziness

I know you’re all hyper-productive people who only read the Pins on the toilet or during five minute cab rides, but going minimalist could make anyone a lazy morsel of shit. Many, if not most of us want those dope sunglasses and that armadillo slap bracelet and that truffle hunting pig. But if we left all those desires behind and nestled into self-sufficiency, it’d be curtains for our motivation. But not me. I can’t stop moving. I’m like a shark. Or like a tilapia with a shark chasing it. Okay, I’m lying. I’m still covered in Chex Mix dust from breakfast.

You'll Look The Same As Every Other Minimalist

Basic needs are universal, so when you reduce life to its lowest common denominator, you’ll be living like every other minimalist. Well, maybe not you. You’re different. You’re special. Ur mnmlst!