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GOODBYE THINGS, HELLO MINIMALISM: ¹CAN LIVING WITH LESS MAKE YOU HAPPIER?

Fumio Sasaki owns a roll-up mattress, three shirts and four pairs of socks. After deciding to scorn possessions, he began feeling happier. He explains why.

Let me tell you a bit about myself. I’m 35 years old, male, single, never been married. I work as an editor at a publishing company. I recently moved from the Nakameguro neighbourhood in Tokyo, where I lived for a decade, to a neighbourhood called Fudomae in a different part of town. ²The rent is cheaper, but the move pretty much wiped out my savings.
Some of you may think that I’m a loser: an unmarried adult with not much money. The old me would have been way too embarrassed to admit all this. I was filled with useless pride. But I honestly don’t care about things like that any more. The reason is very simple: I’m perfectly happy just as I am. The reason? I got rid of most of my material possessions.
Minimalism is a lifestyle in which ³you reduce your possessions to the least possible. Living with only the bare essentials has not only provided superficial benefits such as the pleasure of a tidy room or the simple ease of cleaning, ⁴it has also led to a more fundamental shift. It’s given me a chance to think about what it really means to be happy.
We think that ⁵the more we have, the happier we will be. ⁶We never know what tomorrow might bring, so we collect and save as much as we can. This means we need a lot of money, so we gradually start judging people by how much money they have. You convince yourself that you need to make a lot of money so you don’t miss out on success. And for you to make money, you need everyone else to spend their money. And so it goes.
So I said goodbye to a lot of things, many of which I’d had for years. And yet now I live each day with a happier spirit. ⁷I feel more content now than I ever did in the past.
I wasn’t always a minimalist. I used to buy a lot of things, believing that all those possessions would increase my self-worth and lead to a happier life. I loved collecting a lot of useless stuff, and I couldn’t throw anything away. I was a natural hoarder of knick-knacks that I thought made me an interesting person.
At the same time, though, I was always comparing myself with other people who had more or better things, ⁸which often made me miserable. I couldn’t focus on anything, and I was always wasting time. Alcohol was my escape, and I didn’t treat women fairly. I didn’t try to change; I thought this was all just part of who I was, and I deserved to be unhappy.
My apartment wasn’t horribly messy; if my girlfriend was coming over for the weekend, I could do enough tidying up to make it look presentable. On a usual day, however, there were books stacked everywhere because there wasn’t enough room on my bookshelves. Most I had thumbed through once or twice, thinking that ⁹I would read them when I had the time.
The closet was crammed with what used to be my favorite clothes, most of which I’d only worn a few times. The room was filled with all the things I’d taken up as hobbies and then gotten tired of. A guitar and amplifier, covered with dust. Conversational English workbooks I’d planned to study once I had more free time. Even a fabulous antique camera, ¹⁰which of course I had never once put a roll of film in.
¹¹It may sound as if I’m exaggerating when I say I started to become a new person. Someone said to me: “All you did is throw things away,” which is true. ¹²But by having fewer things around, I’ve started feeling happier each day. I’m slowly beginning to understand what happiness is.
If you are anything like I used to be – miserable, constantly comparing yourself with others, or just believing your life sucks – ¹³I think you should try saying goodbye to some of your things. […] Everyone wants to be happy. But trying to buy happiness only makes us happy for a little while.

Fonte: adaptado de <https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/12/goodbye-things-hello-minimalism-can-living-with-lessmake-you-happier>. Acesso em: 21 mai. 2017. 
 

As palavras sublinhadas nos excertos da coluna I foram utilizadas tendo os referentes respectivamente indicados na coluna II.

 

Coluna I	Coluna II
I. ... it has also led to a more fundamental shift. (ref. 4)	living with only the bare essentials
II. … which often made me miserable. (ref. 8)	other people who had more or better things
III. ... I would read them when I had the time. (ref. 9)	my bookshelves
IV. … which of course I had never once … (ref. 10)	a fabulous antique camera

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