Here’s everything I currently have in my wardrobe:
- 13 t-shirts
- 6 button-ups
- 4 pairs of pants
- Two pairs of shoes
- Two pairs of shorts
- Socks and underwear
- Two pairs of sweatpants
- One sweater, one hoodie, one coat, one hat
Not counting my socks and underwear, or my belt and watch and glasses, that’s only 33 things.
As for the rest of my material possessions, I have barely anything besides my backpack, my phone, my computer, my wallet, a small case with my IDs and data drives, bathroom stuff, and kitchen stuff.
My last move, I only moved into the place with a backpack and a small suitcase’s worth of stuff.
And the move before that, the usual suitcase full of clothes + one other bag and my backpack. (then I lost all that stuff, sadly. But it was a temporary issue. At this point, I’ve replaced everything that matters. Plus even before then, I’d still left Canada with barely anything besides my wardrobe, camera, and a few books)
I make a point not to retain useless stuff. If I don’t wear it, use it for practical reasons, or find sentimental value in it, I trash it, donate it, or give it to a friend. I don’t miss a single thing I’ve given up in these ways.
I consciously take inventory of every little material item I have.
Does it add value to my life, or does it simply take up space?
I encourage you to ask yourself the same question about your stuff. And if the answer is “it just takes up space”, then let it go. Give it away. Stop making it your responsibility. I’m about to tell you why.
I’ve lived as a minimalist since the summer of 2018.
I decided to clean up my apartment/sex dungeon one day, and give away a bag full of clothes I’d never wear.
Then that spring cleaning quickly spiraled into a minimalism addiction. Over the coming months, I got rid of 2/3 of my wardrobe, the better part of my watch collection, some of my books, and a bunch of other assorted material items.
Some of it went to my friends, some of it got trashed, and much of it went to the campus’ second-hand store.
When I’d moved into that apartment/sex dungeon, all my stuff was in a suitcase, a travel bag, two big bags, a backpack, and three large garbage bags. I also had two small shelves to move.
I’d had to drag all those things between 4 places – my dorm room, the place I was staying at for the summer, a friend’s place I was crashing at between apartments, and my next apartment. No moving van, just multiple trips by foot with bags for the smaller stuff and Uber rides for the bigger stuff. I was smart about not bringing too many things to college, but when I moved out of my dorm room and into the first of three apartments I’d move my stuff into over the previous summer, it only took me 3 or 4 solo (not counting the Uber driver for one of them) trips between places to get the job done.
Does this sound familiar? I’m sure you’ve had moves where you’ve had to make AT LEAST 3-4 round trips to move all your stuff from point A to point B. Probably even having to load up your car or a moving van with a bunch of it every time.
Taking care of your stuff doesn’t have to be that time-consuming. You also don’t need as many of those items as you think you do, and getting rid of them can lead to many gains and few real losses.
My venture into minimalism didn’t only free up room in my living space. It did a lot for me spiritually.
The minimalist mindset
Tossing my stuff got me thinking – what else in my life doesn’t add value?
Certain mindsets. Certain people/relationships/connections. Certain values. And above all,
Attachment to the past didn’t add value to my life.
Why was I keeping all those useless things around? Just so I could only MAYBE use them someday? More than that, I kept them around because they were taking up my emotional bandwidth. Once I became aware of that, I could let them go and free up that bandwidth for better, more useful things.
I’d outgrown a ton of people and ways of thinking I’d had in my life too. Keeping them around was draining me more than it was enriching me. Most of those people, I wasn’t sad to let go of once my social life burnt down (for good reason!). I was only sad that I was settling for them; that I couldn’t quickly replace them with people aligned with my higher self.
Minimalism isn’t about having as few things as possible. It’s not about learning to live with only the bare minimum.
Minimalism, to me, is about learning to live only with what serves you. It’s about actively Creating your Reality through subtraction. It’s about your possessions serving you, instead of you serving your possessions.
Living like this has only made me more free and less burdened. I haven’t had a single issue with minimalism over the last few years.
I’ve already gone over how minimalism makes moving easier, but the benefits are myriad:
- Your stuff’s easier to organize and it doesn’t take up nearly as much space. You’ll have one junk drawer at most!
- Your laundry is lighter
- Your identity isn’t so invested in your material belongings, and you can invest it in more rewarding domains (ex. your behavior, your hobbies, your values)
- You don’t fear loss so much. It’s easy to let go of an item that’s played its part in your life. These material items hold no power over you.
So what can you get rid of TODAY that’ll get you started on your own minimalism journey, should you choose to get on it?
Clothes. All you need is 30-60 (100 at most) things in your wardrobe, depending on whether you live somewhere that’s warm year-round or somewhere with winters. A minimalist wardrobe can be incredibly versatile, even when the weather’s too hot for layering. An accessory or two, or an added item, or simply rolling your sleeves up can completely change the look/archetype of an outfit.
And don’t get me started on how many items plain white fitted tees and dark jeans go well with.
A fantastic, fashionable, timeless wardrobe requires little beyond the bare essentials + your absolute favorite items.
Electronics. Goodbye to any mess of wires I could possibly have. I just have my laptop, my wireless mouse, my phone, another phone I use as a backup drive, a USB and a few SD cards, and two chargers. I also have too much going on in my life to find value in living vicariously through television, and I’ve never seen the point in having a tablet. My computer has a tablet mode, but I never use it.
Factory reset and recycle your old phones and computers. Same for other electronic devices and accessories you don’t use – used batteries, wires, USBs. You won’t miss them. They don’t have nearly as much sentimental value as you may think.
Video games. They’re fun, I get it. But you’re an adult now. Your achievements and experiences in these games cease to matter once you turn the console off. It’s best you dedicate your time and energy to real things and real pursuits, and limit your video gaming to being a social hobby. Mario Kart and trivia games sure make parties better, but that’s because you’re sharing the experience with other people. Don’t be the guy whose idea of a fun time is being alone in his bedroom staring at a screen and pushing buttons.
Useless material items – furniture, trash, assorted random possessions. You don’t need all that junk laying around. If it doesn’t make your living space prettier or easier to live in, why do you have it? Trash it if it’s bad-quality. Donate it if it’s good-quality. If you haven’t used it within the last year, I doubt you ever will. No point keeping it.
Attachment to the past. Time isn’t real or linear in higher states of consciousness, but even in the lower dimensions, it only ever moves forward. You gain nothing by masturbating your heart to days long since past. Take what works about it so you can integrate it into your current self, but release attachment to what could have been.
Your time, space, and money are limited, so you might as well refuse to allocate them to useless things in the present and invest them in a fulfilling future instead.
Including the future of your relationships.
My minimalist way of dating
This is a dating advice blog, so did you think I was going to write a random article without tying it back to that?
Minimalism transformed my dating life.
Back in the day, I lived a season of my life where I was meeting an abundance of girls, getting hundreds of matches on Tinder, and had enough social proof wherever I went to make 90% of girls be at least slightly receptive to getting to know me.
Ideal, right?
Wrong.
I “converted” very few of these ladies, even when my social life was at its most abundant.
Most of these girls just plain SUCKED, or they simply weren’t right for me. So once I got into minimalism, I started dating much more intentionally. I started to think:
Does she add value to my life, or does she just take up space?
Am I going for her because I desire her, or because I fear staying alone? Am I actually excited by her, or am I just looking to get off?
In hindsight, I can count the girls I felt a strong desire for back then on two hands. Every other girl I’d go for, I’d only care about for ego/validation/getting off reasons. So I learned this the hard way:
You can’t get or retain top-quality women if you also value getting with lower-tier ones.
I’m not saying it can’t be done, just that expending your emotional bandwidth on the girls you’re only kiiiinda into becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, where you unconsciously start to believe you’re not worthy of top-quality ladies.
After all, why are you going for lower-tier girls?
Because you feel they’re what you deserve, of course.
So once I decided to actively abstain from pursuing girls I wasn’t super into and set the boundary that if a girl wasn’t super into me, I’d let her go… The quality of the girls I did get improved. I had much less anxiety with them. I’d only ever pursue a girl for the right reasons – I actually liked her energy and felt like our personalities meshed well, her beauty blew me away, or she looked especially cute in her online dating profile.
I decided to teach my conscious and unconscious minds that I was deserving of these girls.
And so, I got them.
Enough said for now.
Whether or not you’re into becoming minimalist, I’m here to help you learn all the nuances of attracting, dating, and retaining the best possible women for you.
This isn’t a 69-step system that’ll teach you to seduce absolutely any hot girl you encounter, only the ones you most genuinely desire. We don’t sacrifice depth for breadth like some dating gurus teach you to.
I’ll tailor my minimalist way of dating to YOUR subjective wants, needs, and values in the dating world. Maybe you’ll reignite the depth and intimacy and passion with the love of your life, find that love in the first place, or learn to cultivate higher-quality, more intentionally-chosen female options as you date around.
Whatever your next step of sexual mastery is…
– Ben
