Author: Anthony

I have said countless times before that life is all about relationships and experiences. It is obvious that we cannot have many life experiences unless we are consistently having new experiences. It then follows that we cannot have new experiences unless we break the constant repetition of old experiences. In other words: We have got to break from our daily pattern of life often, and try new things (shake things up).

In my opinion, the biggest appeal to living a minimalist lifestyle has always been having the freedom to go to new places, and try new things. The truth is, new experiences are absolutely necessary to grow as people. One cannot acquire true wisdom with their nose in a book all the time, or even surfing the web constantly. Wisdom can only be gained from real world experience (which includes those things too) from a variety of sources, most of which require social interaction (which brings us to relationships).

Need more motivation? Consider this:

Think of your absolute favorite dish. The absolute most delicious thing you have ever tasted. Now consider how many dishes you have ever had in your life. NOW consider how many dishes exist in the world. I think we all can acquiesce to the fact that what we have been exposed to is just a mere fraction of the number of dishes that are out there. From that, we can infer that no matter what our favorite dish is, there must be one we would like even better out there in the world. Many in fact. I’ll even go far enough to say that it is likely we will never get to taste the dish that is the absolute best tasting one in our lifetime.

This logic can be applied to anything: favorite movie, favorite song, favorite sport, favorite vacation spot, favorite leisure activity, etc.

Is this not reason enough to grab life by the horns, and experience as much in life as possible.

A recurring idea that keeps on coming up in all of my posts is the idea of “value.” The very core concept of minimalism is to only retain only those things that add “value” to our lives. It was brought to my attention recently that some people may not know the difference between “value” and “cost”.

 

Something we “value”, is something we hold in high esteem with respect to usefulness, or importance, with regard to our own personal moral standing and passions.

Example: I value life, my daughter, and my bicycle. I value life because I am a servant of God (moral standing). I value my daughter because I am passionate about her. I value my bicycle because I am passionate about bicycling.

Those first two should be no-brainers for anyone to understand. The third one however (bicycle?), seems out-of-place here. While obviously I do not value my bicycle as much as life or my daughter, it is a possession of mine that I value very much. I mentioned it here to point out that “value” is very subjective, as most would not share my passion for bicycling. Value can not be quantified monetarily. And for those things we can put a “dollar value” on, we would usually do so just to use the proceeds to get a better version of that thing; such would be the case with my bicycle. So in essence we are placing a dollar value on it only as a means to replace it with something better toward serving the same purpose.

 

“Cost” is the monetary price of something.  Whether we are buying or selling it, cost is the agreed upon exchange rate. That’s it. That is the only real definition of cost. Often we use the word “value” instead of “cost” to represent the monetary cost of an item in the open market. Example: “This original Picasso painting is valued at $5,000.” This use of the word “value” is not defined the same as the “value” I mentioned above. This use of the word is just a fancy word for “cost.” A pretentious use of the word “value” to make it seem personal, un-materialistic, even subjective.

That Picasso may be worth $5,000, but I don’t value it any more than one of my four year old daughters “masterpieces” up on the fridge. But I’m not passionate about art. On the other hand, I am sure there is an art lover out there that would place a personal value on it well over $5,000 (if they had to put a number on it). True-value is subjective, and therefore far more important than cost-value because it’s part of what makes us individuals.

 

Too often do I see people treat cost-value as if it were true-value.

 

Example: I once knew a person (let’s call him Johnny) who did collect valuable pieces of art (paintings mostly). He claimed to be an art enthusiast. When I once visited his home, he took me to the basement where he kept all his pieces (He didn’t put them up on the walls of his home, mind you). All the pieces were wrapped and sealed in plastic so I couldn’t see them perfectly clearly. But he thumbed through them one by one giving me their names, and of course boasting about their “values”.

It is clear to see that Johnny is not an art enthusiast at all. The only true-value in art, is in the way it looks. How it pleases the eye. He can’t possibly be getting any true-value out of the pieces with them all wrapped up and stashed away in the basement. A true connoisseur would have the pieces up on the walls displayed for everyone to see. A connoisseur would frequently gaze upon them in contentment and contemplation. The truth is that Johnny is just an investor. An investor that just so happens use art as his medium for profit. Johnny is only fooling himself into thinking there is any passion behind his collection. This art collecting is an empty activity.

Generally speaking, any collection hobby where one puts their collection away to be untouched and unused for extended periods of time is not a passion at all. There is no true-value being added to ones life if the collection is unused.

With all this being said, I think it is clear now that understanding “value” (or true-value) is the real path to happiness. Having a good understanding of “cost” (or cost-value), may lead to a more financially sound life, but will not gain one happiness.

As long as the sunlight shines upon your face, know that God loves you.

There is nothing like sunlight on your face, and fresh air in your lungs to remind you how insignificant your problems are. That all the best fruits life has to offer are the ones you already have. That in the larger scheme of things, there is no reason to hold on to your anger, frustration, or any negative feelings.

We all go through tough times in life. Times when we feel worthless, lonely, hurt, useless. When this happens I recommend that we go outside for some fresh air and sunlight, and spend a good amount of time clearing our heads while we let the sunlight and wind wash over us. The benefits:

1.  It reassures us that no matter what we have going on in our lives, we’ve still got the fresh air and sun; and that’s wonderful. We still have the sunrise and sunset on our side. And for those of us who believe, that is a sign that God still loves us. Furthermore, it reminds us that all the wonderful gifts in life are the ones we already have.
2. It serves as a reminder that no matter what problems we have in life, these problems are insignificant compared to the vastness of our reality. Knowing that makes us that much less concerned over these “problems” in the first place. There is even the likelihood that these problems are solved just by this realization. I.E, the problem was just in our heads. One way or the other, our problems are made small.
3. It allows us to step outside of ourselves for a moment or two. To cool down and re-focus. To elaborate on 2, by being reminded of how insignificant our problems are next to the vastness of our reality, we can then look at our problems from a more objective point of view. Solutions tend to me more clear when we can do that.