Today I am once again interested in a quote by Thoreau. This one particularly stuck out to me because it is something that I have been trying to do for a while now.
“It is desirable that a man be clad so simply that he…live in all respects so compactly and preparedly that, if an enemy take the town, he can, like the old philosopher, walk out the gate empty-handed without anxiety.”
We are programmed to become attached to the things we like, whether it be an object or a person. We continually want more and this mindset makes the objects in our lives pile up and become cluttered. We appreciate aesthetics and design, furniture, and are always looking of that one of a kind ‘treasure’ that no one else will have. We become attached to these things because they are unique. The truth is that they only help clutter our lives more. Why is it so hard to give these things up and live a minimalist lifestyle? If disaster struck your life could you walk away without a second thought?
Most people would say no to that question. So how did we start to move our love from people to material objects? Some would say it started when we were infants. Once we began to grow older our mothers didn’t need to give us constant attention. To cope with this we attached to something that would give us the same feeling such as a blanket or a teddy bear. This continued into adulthood where we buy things to satisfy our emotional needs. When we are faced with the threat of losing our material possessions it triggers anxiety in our brains because we are losing our emotional attachment. There are other explanations but this seems to be the main one.
We need to realize that possession only prevent us from examining ourselves. We may have an underlying problems and are using material objects to distract us. For some of us our possessions may define us. The more we have the better we feel about the status of our life. For others is may be that we have a fear of not being in control. When we control what we have around us it makes us feel better about our lives. What this ultimately leads to though is continual unhappiness and leaves you to be a victim of circumstances. We have this constant fear of losing everything and so we’re always thinking about our material possessions.
So how do we detach from these things? The first step is to realize that we are only satisfying our underlying emotional needs. Once we realize this we can begin to focus on ourselves. This will lead us to getting rid of many things we don’t need. If you ask yourself “What emotional need am I trying to satisfy with this object?” and answer that question you can begin working on yourself. It’s all about bringing inner peace to ourselves. We don’t want objects, we want happiness. These things are only distractions.
I personally have been trying for many months now to live a more minimalist lifestyle and this quote was a great reminder to keep myself on track. I am not quite there yet though. I still feel I need my laptop and particular photos. I realize that I like to be reminded of old memories and thats why I keep them. I need to remember that the memories will still be with me and maybe one day I will no longer feel attached to them. I attach to my laptop not because of the device itself but because of the abundance of knowledge it brings me. I need to remind myself everyday that knowledge is all around me then one day I might be able to say that I could walk away without looking back.
andreaiei 