Empathy.

I remember always getting so aggravated as a kid whenever I'd return home from school to find my room in disarray. My siblings always had one or more of their possessions idly laying somewhere in my room and instead of searching for such possessions calmly, they had this habit of turning every single thing over during their search. This pattern repeated itself for so long, causing an automatic rift in the relationship between my siblings and I. At some point, it felt like they usually made a mess in my room just to get on my last nerve.

At the time, constant complaining was all I could do. These were my elder siblings and there was nothing else I could do but complain amidst tears. It got to a point where I purposely didn't let my siblings into my room and whenever I saw the tiniest of their possessions, I immediately took it to their rooms. But before now, the rift had already been created and this manifested in a subtle form of emotional scarring.

A few days ago, during a conversation with my brother, he randomly said how much he and my other siblings enjoyed turning my room upside down when we were all younger. He claimed that the reason they did this was because I was just a kid and I had no business with clean and tidy rooms. So in essence, they helped me scatter my room just so I would know what a child’s room looked and felt like.

I didn't know it then but my constant urge to keep things tidy and clean at all times was a demonstration of an innate minimalistic lifestyle and my siblings just didn't see why it should be so and as such, they couldn't understand nor accept the lifestyle.

In light of this, I would like to highlight that many people do not know that a concept like minimalism even exists and on the flip side, a good number of people who know it exists do not fully understand the concept. In this journey called life, people tend to reach a point where they just want to declutter; be it emotional baggage, social connections, mental baggage and even physical burdens.

During the course of this decluttering action, people tend to use the word “change” to describe the situation. Personally, the adjective “wicked” has been used to describe my course of action several times. I’ve heard things like “Wongi, you're a wicked person,” from people who I decided to let go due to their unhealthy impact on my mental health.

As a minimalist, prioritising essentialism is one thing I strive to do and I’ve made peace with the fact that not everyone would accept this and rifts in relationships are bound to happen. However, I try to explain the ‘situation’ to the people I’m in close relationships with, hoping they understand. Minimalism can be challenging for people to understand due to various reasons but one thing I do to avoid the constant back and forth is to apply empathy. They may not understand today but someday they may.

Liebe🤍