An eye-opener.

In the space of about a month, my aims and views on life have changed more rapidly than they ever have before. A month ago I was browsing clothing forums and dreaming about how I would get a good job and buy myself a lovely Savile Row suit. Never mind that it would cost a few thousand pounds or that far cheaper suits would do perfectly well – it’s about satisfaction, isn’t it? Now, thanks to an idle Google search and plenty of minimalist blogs, I have realised that material possessions never bring satisfaction nor happiness.

About a year ago I returned from a year abroad in Russia, where my possessions were whatever I could fit into the suitcase on the way out. Oddly, I never really thought of this as restricting. Yet when I came home again and started back at university, I suddenly felt that I needed to possess all these different things in order to be satisfied. Clothes, wine, books, whatever. The actual item is irrelevant. The only important thing is the act of purchasing or opening that box from Amazon. Sure it was nice to try on something new or to have some kind of accepted brand, but it didn’t last. Besides, most people don’t notice or care, and the ones that do are probably wankers. Being a student, of course, this was not a sensible long-term plan for my finances.

Not to worry though, since I had a summer internship lined up, which would pay off my overdraft and then some. I’m now about halfway through the internship and my current plans bear no resemblance to my aims and dreams of even two months ago.

There seems to be a fundamental illogicality in the idea that you work long hours for lots of money. I’m not in banking or anything like that, but the hours are substantial (much more than the average) and the pay is commensurate. The people I’m working with are driving themselves to do work they hate for hours they hate for money that they don’t have time to spend. If you’re working fourteen or more hours a day, when you finally leave your plans for the evening barely extend beyond dinner and bed. So why live like that? As far as I can tell, for status and achievement. Being able to say that you work in xxx industry, earning xxx a year and living in xxx area. Getting that promotion a year or two earlier than your contemporaries working more reasonable hours.

But then, of course, there’s always someone further up the chain than you. You make manager, but then there’s senior managers right above you. You can afford to live in that nice area of town, but not the car or yacht or private jet or whatever the hell else it is that people with too much money buy. And so you have to keep at it in order to make the next step.

I guess a lot of this depends on how enjoyable you find your work. I have fairly limited experience so look to the others around me. None of them seem particularly happy at finishing work at 11pm. They are stressed and in poor health because almost every waking hour is dedicated to working. If your work has some kind of benefit to wider society or is part of your wider interests I can see how people would choose to dedicate themselves to that one aim. But what if your work is dull, or serves no greater good? What if you’re working on producing some report you know will probably never be read? If your dreams and aspirations happen to align with your work, then you are truly lucky. For the majority though, I suspect that unfulfilling work crowds out every other part of their life.

So I began this summer with the plan of starting a high-flying corporate career to fund some kind of aspirational life that I vaguely felt I deserved. Now, I no longer crave a materialistic life and I now see no benefit in working crazy hours to service that lifestyle. Perhaps you read this and think that this blog is nothing more than the shock of a student meeting the realities of working life. There’s probably more than a grain of truth in that. However, with the current opportunities available it seems silly to ignore the alternatives. Fifty years ago the aim was to get on the bottom rung of the corporate ladder and pay your time to work your way up to comfortable mediocrity. This is still the aim for many, but it is not the only option.

In many ways I am at an ideal point to begin to change my attitudes. Living in temporary accommodation means that I haven’t had time to accumulate clutter. In a year’s time I will have no obligations, mortgages, contracts, nothing.

In my London accommodation I have counted less than 100 things. This ignores the tat I have stored elsewhere, of course, but it was an eye-opener to see that I am already living with less than 100 items. I have still managed to find ten items to donate to charity, though, neatly combining minimalist ideals with charitable causes.

For the time being this blog will probably be little more than a form of self-regulation, ensuring that I don’t stray from my aims. But I am excited to see where it can go in the future and I hope I can find my own niche in the minimalist community. Once you have found a purpose you don’t need possessions to fill the gap.

tom