Minimalism: Can Living with Less Make You Happier? 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. Some of you may think that I ’ m a loser: an unmarried adult with not much money. 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 you 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, but it has also led to a more fundamental shift. It has given me a chance to think about what it really means to be happy. 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. I 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. At the same time, though, I was always comparing myself with other people who had more or better things which often made me miserable ” . I couldn ’ t focus on anything, and I was always wasting time. On a usual day, there were books stacked everywhere in my apartment because there wasn ’ t enough room on my bookshelves. Most I had thumbed through once or twice, thinking that I would read them when I had 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. There were some conversational English workbooks I ’ d planned to study once I had more free time. But by having fewer things around, I ’ ve started feeling happier each day. I ’ m slowly beginning to understand what happiness is. After what I ’ ve been through, I think saying goodbye to your things is more than an exercise in tidying up. I think it ’ s an exercise in learning about true happiness. Maybe that sounds grandiose. But I seriously think it ’ s true.