On My Minimalism

So my birthday is coming up.  My daughter recently observed to my wife that I am a minimalist.  My wife agreed, and as such, said I'm incredibly difficult to buy gifts for. I thought I would look into this a little more. I found some great thoughts on this website, unfortunately after a great bit of thought, they then immediately went to things you could buy.  An excerpt:

Minimalists want to keep clutter to a minimum so that they can better enjoy their lives. They know that if their home and schedule are cluttered with things they don’t love and need, they are sacrificing space and time for the things they do love and need. 

People who practice minimalism are often looking for ways to simplify their lives. They want to be surrounded by things that they absolutely love…ONLY what they absolutely love.  

For minimalists, it’s about priorities. If you know a minimalist enough to know what their priorities are, start there. You should be able to come up with some appropriate, and very much appreciated, gifts for the minimalists in your life. 

Minimalists aren’t necessarily opposed to receiving more things for their home, but it’s best to ask. After all, minimalists definitely want to keep clutter to a minimum. If you aren’t a minimalist, but you want to buy something for a friend or family member who is, you must consider their lifestyle. You could buy them something that makes their life easier. Or maybe something that makes their life more enjoyable. To do this, you need to know their hobbies and interests, as well as their needs. 

So.. what do I love? Getting away. Vacations and long weekends. Why? We spent time together, we play together, we eat together, we worry less. We're not constantly looking at an overflowing to do list or trying to get our daughter to finish her responsibilities. We explore, we discover, we are surrounded by a clean environment (apartment and rental car).  We're not creating clutter, we clean as we go, and the only new stuff that comes into our living space is stuff we bring back, not unwanted clutter like old papers or unwanted mail. In general, we have less.

We are surrounded by art, landscaping, things that are complete. Rather than piles upon piles of incomplete. And if something does need help, usually a quick phone call and someone else comes and takes care of it. Everything is quieter. The pantry is simpler. And did I mention there's no mail? Even the time in the car is better. It's not our own traffic in our way, and we're not in a hurry to get somewhere on a schedule. Instead, it's just our journey towards whatever we're going to explore, or back to homebase to regroup and prepare for the next adventure.

What do I hate? So many things unfinished. So many demands on my time. So many things stacked in piles in progress because that's the best place to put them.  Some of this is the limitations of our small house and limited storage, some of it is the nature of too much stuff but some of it is just the way we process things in progress, like my giant pile of books to read. On vacation, I'll only have one or two, or I'll just have my Kindle, I won't have the massive pile like is currently on my nightstand.

And then there's the anxiety of the world intruding on our lives. School, work, the rest of the world. Social media.

What is a gift? Less things unfinished. Less clutter. More things accomplished, cleaned up, put away, checked off the list. More time together, more exploration, more discovery. Simplicity. Things getting better. Piles getting smaller. To do lists getting shorter. Fresh air, singing, happy, silly, being present. Eating on the patio.

When we're on vacation, it's a break from the pressures of this world. Of what the future holds.  Bills that will come due, the living arrangements for our son in the future, especially after we die. Our estranged relationships with extended family. There are people who take care of things, whether something needs repainting, something needs weeding, etc.

Does this actually yield gift ideas? Not so much. And really, isn't quite a bit of this within my control? Isn't there ways I could reframe things so that I'm not being so selfish with my time, that I'm not wasting time on things that don't help piles to get smaller, being present, not filling my time, and so on? Yes.

So how does this help someone who wants to get gifts for people who are impossible to shop for?  It's probably the following:

• Shared Experiences - exploration and discovery, chances to experience new things. The gift of time.
   
• Indulgences - the opportunity to treat yo' friends - food, artwork, new landscaping, treatments for the mind and body
   
• Help - someone else to share the load when it comes to tackling the never-ending list: painters, landscapers, housekeeping, consultation with financial advisors or life coaches or job advisors and resume writers, baby-sitting, errand-running, coach/trainer/dietician for weight loss
   
• Elimination - identifying anything that the recipient feels is a responsibility placed on them that's not really their responsibility. If it can be discarded, that's one thing. But it's something the minimalist feels strongly about, then may not simply be eliminated, it may need to be addressed (see "help").   Is there physical stuff that's causing the minimalist anxiety... can it be eliminated or stored elsewhere?
   
• Technology - like help, is there some device that will take over a task or make a task easier? I know in our house, all the Alexa-enabled stuff and the RoboVac are good examples of this.   

I would like to thank my family for making me think about this question -- and (and this is huge) for letting me have the space to retype my handwritten notes from earlier today, turn them into a blog post, and reflect on my own participation in improving things, because a lot of this has aspects that I can address on my own and treat myself to more simplicity.