A common misconsception about minimalism

I've recently come across this comment:

that's the lie of the minimalism: blaming stress and life misery on the stuff you own. Is rather what you don't own the cause of stress and misery.

And it stuck with me enough to want to write about it.

It seems to be a common misconception that minimalism is about owning fewer things. Some people even take it to mean owning as few things as absolutely possible.

But that is not at all the case. In fact minimalists (and I do count myself among them) don't make any statements about how much stuff one should own, or that it is important to reduce your material possessions.

What minimalists do care about is the the intention and purpose behind items. Because what they have discovered is that they own a lot of stuff that does not serve a clear purpose, that does not solve an actual problem for them and that does not increase their happiness by owning it at all. Instead they bought it because society induced in them the feeling that they needed to own it. Either by making them believe that they had a problem that only this specific item could solve, or because there was an implicit expectation because everyone else also has one. These are just examples, there are a myriad of reasons, but the key realisation is that they are all external impulses. That need to buy did not come from within, even though it often feels like we came up with it ourselves.

This naturally leads to a (often significant) reduction in possessions, and people who witness this think it as the starting point of minimalism, a requirement if you will. But it is merely a consequence.

Minimalism is about only owning the things that you truly need. Where need isn't meant to have a specific meaning. It's not 'need to survive', or 'need to solve problems'. Need in this case is defined by the owner. The only requirement is that this need came from within. That they came up with it themselves.

Minimalists don't hate possessions. They simply stepped off the hedonic treadmill and discovered that this leads to a happier life with less stress and less anxiety. And it doesn't even cost anything.