Letters of a Hugh Sam #4 (07/10/2019)
Minimalism ?! Part 1
Dear Reader,
Let me start off by saying that it is really nice in Montréal right now (where I live, duh) and nice weather puts me in a good mood SO I hope everyone reading this is enjoying their week as much as I am !
Okay, with that little message outta tha wayyyyyy, let's GO.
Today's discussion is about Minimalism.
I recently rekindled with minimalism by reading Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport (great read by the way, I suggest it to everyone who feels like they're slaves to social media or who "don't have enough time" to do what they love) and here are a few takeaways I got from it:
I obviously spend too much time on social media (and millions of others are also)
I should use digital tools in order to help build real life conversations instead of replacing them with it (Connection vs Conversation)
I should first think about how I want to use a digital tool before using it and whether or not I even need to use it.
Now, although takeaway 1 and 2 are important, I want to focus your attention on takeaway 3 (that's why I even put it in BOLD for you).
More specifically, I want to extend that takeaway to almost everything we do in life. So instead of just talking about a minimalist lifestyle or digital minimalism, I'd like to make an argument for EVERYTHING MINIMALISM.
"Wait what? But I don't even know what minimalism is"
The consensus around the internet is that there is no "formal" definition of minimalism because it's a philosophy that is very specific to the individual, but for the sake of making things clearer here is a definition from MoneyUnder30:
"Minimalism is all about living with less. This includes less financial burdens such as debt and unnecessary expenses. ... For many minimalists, the philosophy is about getting rid of excess stuff and living life based on experiences rather than worldly possessions."
A comment I'd like to make about this definition and others around the internet is that they seem to concentrate A LOT on living with less; however, I think the most important part of minimalism is to live with less in some areas in order to live with more in others.
In other words, instead of living in a wide range, you'd want to live in depth.
Here are a few instances:
Financially: Instead of spending your money on a broad range of things, how about thinking about what areas bring you lots of joy and spend lots of money on those areas instead. (Ex: Maybe you're not a fashionable person, but enjoy traveling a lot. So instead of buying lots of clothes, you can stick to maybe 30 pieces of clothing, but can now afford an expensive trip every year.)
Relationships: This one might seem obvious, but having shallow relationships with many people (maybe those 1000 Facebook friends) vs having a small inner circle (10-50 very close friends)
Digital: Being on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, SnapChat, Youtube and following every piece of news vs keeping only 1-2 of these and using them more intently + getting your news from more reputable sites (maybe keep Facebook in order to setup real life meetings + subscribe to the New York Times for your news)\
Work: Working 8 hours per day while using 1h to eat, 2hrs on social media, 1h "doing some research" vs doing 3-4hrs of deep and focused work OR having many low paying, low quality clients vs few high quality, high paying clients for you entrepreneurs out there.
There are many other examples and you can probably find 2-3 more areas in your life where you can apply this exercise of seeing how you could achieve more with less !
One last point I want to make is that before applying minimalism, I think there's a crucial step 0 and that is to
Know yourself or at least question yourself
Before getting more with less, you actually want to know WHAT you want more of and WHAT you want less of. Companies are literally fighting for your attention all the time and if you just listen to whatever companies pitch to you, you'll always feel like you need to have everything, but you don't.
There's no "secret way" to knowing yourself. What I advise is to spend a lot of time ALONE with your own thoughts to see what questions pop up and then try to answer them.
There you go, this subject is honestly MASSIVE and I will most likely write on it in the future, but that's part 1 of it. Also, minimalism is something that I believe in and the more I read about it, the more I think it's "the way to go" and since I don't want to bombard you with a novel on a Wednesday at 8am, I tried to keep it brief so it might have felt rush and/or incomplete; however, if you ever want to discuss more about it, it'd be more than happy to ! Just shoot me an email :)
💥 Positive Impact Company : Certified B Corporation
Certified B Corporation is a really dope company that give out certifications to the most socially and environmentally impacting companies ! Yes, exactly like what I'm doing with my Positive Impact Company section, but on a larger scale.
Companies are evaluated through 4-5 categories: Governance, Workers, Community, Environment and Customers and if they score more than 80 points total, then they become certified aka B Corps.
Some notable companies that are certified B Corps are: Ben & Jerry (mostly Community), Kickstarter (Workers), Eileen Fisher (Environment) and Patagonia (with a whopping score of 151.5 due to Community [58.7] and Environment [44.8]). I invite you to browse the B Corp directory to see if your favorite company is there !
📌 Action item(s) :
Learning to be alone: For one week, try to eat 1/3 meals without your cellphone or computer or tv or music. Just eat your meal and stay with your thoughts (this is surprisingly weird imo).
Learning yourself: For one week, I recommend 5+ minutes of meditation (meditation is simply doing nothing. No need for apps. Just sit and if you want to think, think, if you don't, then don't) OR to enjoy the nice weather go on a 15+ minutes walk and play with your thoughts.
Finally, go through my minimalist exercise where you choose 1 area in your life and decide to live more in depth. Meaning choosing what is important to you, enjoying those things more and then cutting out whatever is less important.
PEACE.
Hey you ! Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this week's letter.
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Also, if you like something in the articles or simply want to discuss with me or give me some constructive feedback, feel free to email me @ onlythetruenjhs@gmail.com
We'll talk more next Wednesday, until then, have a nice week ! ✌️
— Nicholas