Courtney Abbott's Key Ideas from Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism
by Fumio Sasaki

While you may struggle at first, it gets easier when you practice discarding stuff.

Our things are like roommates, except we pay their rent. 

Think of departmental stores as your personal warehouses. There’s generally no need to have 40 rolls of paper towels, 25 spare lightbulbs, and 60 extra cans of food. It takes up precious space and ties your money up in something you may never use.

A lot of times, we keep things around just because. Because it’s there, because we bought it because we might need it. But if it disappeared, would you replace it or would you be okay without it?

When decluttering, many people feel guilty disposing of items given to them as gifts. Think about when you give someone a gift. Do you expect them to keep it forever? Do you check for it when you visit their home? If they didn’t like it, would you want them to hang onto it? If you answered no, odds are the person who gave you a gift would feel the same way.

Our homes aren’t museums, they don’t need collections.

Don’t keep stuff because it’s free. The low price of something isn’t a good enough reason to bring it into your home and your life. Be intentional.

When you purchase a cell phone, you aren’t just getting the phone. You need a charger, case, screen protectors, earbuds, and countless other accessories. When you take up a sport, you need equipment for the sport, appropriate clothing, and appropriate shoes. And let’s not even talk about crafting.

It basically boils down to, don’t worry about things that haven’t happened yet. If you think about doing an everyday task every day for the rest of your life, it can be overwhelming and daunting and depressing. If you take it one day at a time, or one dish at a time, it’s a lot easier to think about and tackle.

Through gratitude, we can trigger sustainable stimulation, which gives us more peace than the stimulation that we get by buying something new or increasing our stockpile.

Everyone started out a minimalist. Our worth is not the sum of our belongings. Possessions can make us happy only for brief periods. Unnecessary material objects suck up our time, our energy, and our freedom. Minimalists are starting to realize that.

When we practice minimalism, we’ll spend less time being distracted by the media or by advertisements because we become aware that we already have everything that we need. And when we feel this way, we can easily ignore most of these messages that cry out to us

When you become a minimalist, the energy you use will also become minimal. You won’t need to try to live in an eco-friendly way—it’ll come naturally. By minimizing your possessions and settling into a focused, simple life, you’ll find that the weight on your shoulders has become lighter and you’re living in a way that’s gentler on the environment. And you know what? It gives you a pretty good feeling.

There’s an important concept called minimum living costs, which refers to the minimum amount of money you need to live. It’s worthwhile for everyone to calculate this for themselves at least once, by adding up rent, groceries, utilities, communication charges, and so on.

We’re all born into this world as minimalists, but the Japanese used to lead minimalist lives as well. Foreigners who came to Japan before industrialization were shocked.

While it might be hard to imagine today, most people owned perhaps two or three kimonos, always kept fresh and clean, as their entire wardrobe. They packed light, their legs were strong, and they could walk wherever they needed to go. Homes were simple structures that could quickly be rebuilt, and people didn’t tend to live in the same place all their lives. Japanese culture used to be a minimalist culture.