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RE: When you think life is “hard” on you, maybe there’s a reason.
Another inspirational post... I am a minimalist and I concur to your points above... I am less into materialism and more into relationships and living life as a general
Learning so much just reading this comment alone. I am still working towards minimalism n decluterring. The hardest thing about parting with stuff is because of the memories attached to them. But i do not buy things for the purpose of getting a free gift, if i get one and i know i am
Not using it, rather decline the gift. The can save if for the next person who really wants it
If you fear of discarding material items because of memories attached to it, then take my basic concepts about photos.
I am a photographer and I take a lot of photos. But the total photos I have over the past 10 years is less than selfies taking by a younger girl in 1 year.
Fast forward to when we are 80 years old and I catch up with old friends and family and we reminisce about a particular event or moment and I say "hey~! I have that photo". Even if you are super organised like me, if you have a few hundred thousand photos, it will take me maybe more than half an hour to search the said photo. And by that time, my friends will have lost interest or the atmosphere of excitement is already gone. Also, as a photographer, I know that less is definitely more because say for the gathering we attended last Sat, I have only 28 photos. If I were to take photos the first minute to the very end. I may have 50 photos. Participants would be much interested to go over all those 50 photos. Imagine I have 300 photos for the 4 hour event, I guarantee you that less than 5% will scroll through all 300 photos, most will stop by around 100 photos... Then you multiple that by 300 events and imagine how many photos I have and me and others will only go over 5% of the photos if I were to have maybe 20 thousand photos from those 300 events.
Now let's get back to memories attached materials, yes, there will be a lot of stuff that means a lot, but if you have so much, by the time you are 80, you won't remember the story behind a whole room full of memorable items. Personally, I will keep some especially from a old friend or close family or relatives. All others, pain is the discard, after that, there is less than 1% chance of regret.
Free gifts that are junk are not only a waste of space and useless to me, but it very much harm the environment we live in. Also, the more junk we have, the harder it is to look for the more important items. Hence it is very easy for me to say no to junk items.
Yes i agree with you on the minimal amount of photos. I don’t take good ones but if i have to i try to remind myself those days we only have 36 shots in a row of film, so make each shot count.
Ah taking photos of the stuff is a good idea. Especially kids crafts from school. Just too much to keep.
As a photographer, I can tell you that ALL photographers do not take good photos. We just choose a few of the very best, then crop and do some minor editing and our photo album will look marvellous.
Idea is not to take less, but to take at the right angle and right moment.. Practice makes perfection. Usually, I only need to take a few hundred photos and choose the very best 200 or less for a full day event.
As for your children's crafts, there are a few you can keep, just be selective..
I have seen a clip of a mother making a quilt out of small pieces of their kid's clothing.. and it is an amazing idea
Grateful for the kind words @orangila , I used to be quite a consumerism myself as I was quite a tech chasing person (although I don't simply buy off something blindly) and love to try different kinds of food; but yes I too am inspired with minimalism that is why I am trying to de-clutter my current place especially my future unit is only 1/3 of the current size and more responsibilities to take on.
(Hence it is really good to discover Steemit last year)
Thanks for stopping by with your valuable comment!
I have been a minimalist for 2 decades already, I can share a few things with you:
There are many more examples...
Hm. I have already start to reduce a lot in that manner, except 7.
For 8, it is a no brainer to the point that I have too many things that I am starting to give away instead haha.
The only challenging part is because I love to craft, there will eventually a lot of junk kept aside to re-use / transform into something different; that's why I am doing the de-clutter raffle contest so that it pushes me to get rid of all the junk and quickly re-produce good stuffs to give away for #teammalaysia members.
For the junks, there must be YouTube clips or forum on what to do with your "junk", there must be good use for it.. you can take photo of your junk and I may be able to give you suggestions...
I am going to tell you in advance that I may have to politely decline your gifts because last thing I want is to be too shy to say no only to take something which I'll never use.. something like key chains or bracelets etc are things I have too much of it... what I value is your friendship and advice on Steemit.. and digital photography is the best... it is intangible, and can be stored on cloud, and is priceless in value forever..
Oh you can always win it (if you win it) and send it to someone who you think might find it useful.
Do check out my Junk to Glamour series in my old steemit account (which I found my master password again after one year)
I will show you here and see if you think you might be able to bless someone else.
I changed the "junk" cough metal boxes to a container that is re-usable. :)
This is the one that is for the raffle contest + fund raising for my mom's surgical fee too.
which means you might / might not win it. Because it is a raffle.
(by chance)
Very nice.... I hope your mom is all okay~!!!
I know what raffles are:)
I hope she will be ok too. Just that her cornea is weaker than normal so a simple eye surgery will become more complicated.
(and cost more)
These containers are very nice btw @littlenewthings. I hope it finds a new home with someone who will treasure this
Love what you wrote here @orangila and I totally agree. Minimalism is the way to go! Investing in building relationships and collecting memories are way better than accumulating debts and junk at home.
Yes... I am so used to saying no things and giving and way free gifts... I also have the habit to recycle and donate my unneeded stuffs. Photos, memories, friendships and family are more valuable than any money (real life or cryptocurrency) or material goods..
Well, I have another thing that I have hard to let go, really good books to always refer back to lol....
Books are like DVDs/Blu Rays, they are only good to keep/collect if you'll read/watch them over and over again...
So I guess you must have tons of albums at home, or you have resulted into keeping all of them in digital format @orangila ?
Yes, I had a lot of photo albums. When i started photography, there were only film cameras. But my skill have improved a lot. I take a lot less photos but of much higher quality. So my digital photography is only at 10k plus, but of high quality.
Now I have both digital and film photos. digital photos are the best~! film photos are old and brings back a lot more memories.
Hm. Except fridge magnets on the places I visited. haha.