Fig & Olive

I’ve been on the slow of path minimalism —a concept I believe to be similar to the Islamic concept of zuhud, for a few years now. Stories of Sufis like Rabia Al Adawi and her possession of a single bowl and comb, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and his straw mat for a bed, and several stories like it, have always intrigued me and made me ashamed of how much stuff I’ve acquired. That feeling of discomfort over my accumulation of stuff is accompanied by the realization that a little goes a long way. A thought that occurs to me time and time again whenever I travel —which, as of the last few years, has been quite a lot.

Nothing made that clearer than when I moved back home after living in Jordan for two years. I’d accumulated a long-standing mirror, more clothes, a desk-chair, more food than I could actually consume and bought souvenirs for family, all but the souvenirs were left behind for the most part. I even had to give away a huge garbage bag of clothes, because it just wouldn’t fit in my suitcase. Yet and still when I arrived at the airport, one huge suitcase and a few plastic bags for stuff that couldn’t fit, my luggage was overweight and I again had to leave stuff behind.

Almost every time I’ve left somewhere (as opposed to when I’m going and try to pack light), it’s an embarrassing ordeal at the airport trying to figure out how to carry a bunch of stuff in my hand that I acquired in my travels.

Traveling has taught me how much of a physical burden having too much stuff can be and how possible it is to live on very little.

But can our stuff be a mental burden as well?

Inspired by Fumio Sasaki’s book Goodbye, Things: A New Japanese Minimalism, I started clearing my room of unnecessary things, to my surprise I was able to let go of two large bags of what can only be qualified at this point as junk. Everything that’s remained unused for months or years is essentially junk. I stuffed a garbage bag full of clothes to give away to Goodwill and I cleared my desk of all the books I knew I wouldn’t need for the next few months. At this point, I’m not ready to give away my books, but I thought I’d at least put them out of sight. Lately, I’ve been wanting to practice my Arabic but every time I attempt to do so, I’m met with a flurry of indecision —should I practice on my index cards or use Quizlet? Should I use my old book from my former Arabic program or a text focused on Quranic Arabic? Should I focus on reading and comprehension or grammar? And on and on. Every time I made a decision to start with x method/book, I’d end up second guessing myself and considering another method/book superior. So I put away all my Arabic texts except one, that doesn’t completely solve my issues with indecision, but it helps. If the other books are out of sight they’ll be out of mind, harder to reach and force me to stick with what’s in front of me, hopefully.

As I continued to look for stuff I no longer needed I opened up a drawer full of elegant teacups and saucers I’d bought from the Salvation Army a while back. Years ago, my mom and I had an online business selling vintage goods. I traveled and my mom didn’t want to continue the business on her own, so we ended it. But we were left with lots of inventory and no clear path of what to do with it. We could just give it away, but what about all the money we’d spent on it? I tried to sell some of it on eBay but the offers I got barely covered the cost of shipping. I even thought briefly that I could keep the dishes for myself when I had an apartment of my own or that I could open my own shop someday and sell it there.

Let go of someday, is something Sasaki repeatedly says in Goodbye, Things inspired by this I took these precious ‘someday’ dishes out of my drawer, washed them, dried them and stacked them amongst the other dishes. Looking at these quaint dishes amongst larger sturdier mugs I thought, “Well, I don’t know if we’ll use them, but its better than collecting dust in my drawer”. The next day, I was pleasantly surprised that my mother used them for Sunday Brunch, the dishes that’d I’d hoped to use someday were finally being put to use. Instead of a reminder of the goals I had yet to achieve, they were objects who’d found a new and equally valuable purpose.

Looking through my papers is tough, I still hold on to most of the research papers from graduate school as well as my essays, and since I’d sorted through my papers only a month ago I didn’t expect to find much to get rid of, yet lying there under my desk was an old novel I’d written in high school and never finished. Instead of allowing it to collect dust for a few more years, I shredded it. This old novel that I never finished is history —I do have a copy of it on my computer so I haven’t completely let go, but shredding it allows it to take up a little less mental and physical space in my life. I don’t have to think of it as a failure but simply acknowledge the fact that I moved on.

Letting go of some of these objects I began to wonder; had I been surrounding myself with objects that reminded me of past failures? And was it affecting my mental state in any way? I can’t imagine that being reminded of all the things I wanted to do but didn’t or started to do but couldn’t complete has done me any good. Getting rid of or repurposing these items allows me to simply move on, it’s simply something that occurred in my past and has nothing to do with my present and should bare little effect on my current self-worth.

Moving ample books, books I know I won’t read anytime soon and aren’t relevant to my current interests, also gives me some mental clarity. I don’t have to keep walking past stacks of books and wondering when I’m going to get around to reading it or feeling bad that I haven’t yet. The degree to which our stuff effects our mental state may be more important that we think. When I was a teenager my mother would constantly come to my messy room and attempt to convince me that cleaning up would brighten my mood, I didn’t buy it then, but I may be convinced now.

Ask yourself what your stuff, the amount of it that you have and how they are situated in your space might be doing to your mood? More specifically ask yourself, what the stuff around you represents and if it’s still relevant to your life now? This minimalism journey has been a slow one for me. I still have lots of stuff I know I don’t need but can’t quite give up, but it’s not all or nothing. For now half of my books are in my closet and off my dresser, the other half remain relevant to my current interests and research, this may be just a small change but I do believe it will make a big difference. What stuff might you want to get rid of or at least put away to create a space that is better suited to your current needs?

As Sasaki so poignantly states, “Our things are like roommates except we pay their rent,” if those things no longer benefit us —or worse, cause us harm, we shouldn’t feel too hesitate about kicking them out.