Minimalism Will Make Your Life Story More Meaningful

The fact that our time here on earth is limited has always motivated me. 

Not in an anxious, life-is-short-so-do-it-all-now kind of way. But in a way that inspires me to write a better, more intentional life story.

We are all writing a story with our lives based on the choices we make every day.

My life story became a whole lot more meaningful when I embraced minimalism, which all started three years ago this week.

Today I’m sharing my minimalist story. Hopefully it inspires you to live more simply and on purpose.

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Three years ago this week, my minimalist journey and this blog began. 

Earlier in the year, I had quit my job as a speech language-pathologist for a local hospital’s home health and hospice department to transition into the job I’d always wanted: stay-at-home mom.

Now, I’d never been much of a homebody; I much prefer travel and outdoor adventure. But I had grand ideals for this new season at home with our littles ones, ages 4 and 3 months. We’d spend cozy winter days baking and playing board games, have friends over frequently for playdates, read mountains of books, and just immensely enjoy the increased quality time together. 

Things were going to be great.

Until they weren’t. 

A few months into the stay-at-home mom gig, I was simply overwhelmed. My days were far from blissful. Instead of playing with our children as a happy, present mom, I was quickly becoming resentful. My new title should have been “Full-time Stuff Manager.”

At home all day, I was confronted with how much stuff we actually had. And how much time and energy I spent cleaning it, picking it up, looking for it, and stepping over it (though I’ll admit, if it was a plastic kid’s toy I was stepping over, I was often tempted to just crush it under my feet).

As resentful as I was about our stuff, I was part of the problem—I kept buying more. I used toys as rewards, motivators, and distractors. If our neighbors had something and our daughter wanted it, I got it for her. FOMO was real. I wanted our daughter to have a good childhood, and I thought she needed lots of stuff to do that. 

Shopping was a way out of the house and an invitation for novelty, especially on long, winter days. Target was a frequent stop. After toy shopping, I could inadvertently swing by the clothing aisle. I could always count on a new scarf, graphic tee, or pair of earrings to provide a quick mood boost. 

Our possessions pile grew, and so did our debt. Soon our multiple credit card statements added up to over $40,000. Sure, I felt uneasy about it. But it was easier to use the dopamine rush from each new purchase to push our debt reality out of mind.

Around this time, I first heard of minimalism. A friend had read Marie Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and had excitedly told me all about it. So I read it, and it piqued my interest, but not enough to take any action. 

Meanwhile, life felt as though it was starting to crumble. Our family culture needed to change—I felt this at my core. Trying to live like the majority of middle class America, chasing some dream that revolved around the right car, house, and possessions, just wasn’t working.

Then, to top things off, I was diagnosed with postpartum depression. I felt like I was living a downward spiral that I didn’t know how to stop. 

I hung on, knowing rock bottom had to be close. One day, I finally hit it. Life came to a crashing halt. 

My daughters and I were leaving the house for a morning playdate. Our four-year-old daughter was melting down in the driveway, holding armfuls of toys she insisted she’d need at the playdate. Deciding to no longer pick that battle, I helped her pack the car with playthings and then turned to buckle in our baby.

Snapping the last buckle, a slow motion feeling came over me. I felt like my world was spinning, and I fell. I lied there on our driveway next to our SUV full of kids and stuff, and I stared up at the clear, blue October sky. I had no idea what was going on. Was it my heart? Why did I have a shooting pain in my back? Why couldn’t I breathe?

Later that day, I went to the doctor. After completing his exam, he sat me down and looked me in the eyes. His body language mirrored the intensity of the message he was about to deliver. “It looks like you’ve been under a lot of stress for a really long time,” he said soberly. And then he told me to rest.

So I did. I took off the week off as much as I could, laid up in the recliner in our baby’s room. I read a lot. I prayed.

My eyes fell on Luke chapter 12. The words from verses 15 and 21 jumped off the page to me. “For though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions…(be) rich in what matters to God.”

Was I rich in what mattered? I asked myself that question. Was I rich in connection with my family? Rich in relationships with friends? Rich in time to grow spiritually? Rich in space for hobbies that were life giving? No. I wasn’t. Not at all. Something had to change.

Later that week, I went to therapy. The counselor I routinely met with had become more like a dear friend and mentor. She knew me well. “Ever heard of minimalism?” she asked me nonchalantly as we were wrapping up the session. “Oh, like living only with what sparks joy?” I asked. “Well, there’s more to it than that,” she said. “You might look into it.”

And so I did. I dug into minimalism like I was back in Journalism school in undergrad, investigating a new story lead. I absorbed minimalism that week, digging into blogs and audiobooks. 

It was a lifestyle change I knew I had to try. What did I have to lose? We had way too much stuff, too much stress, and too many half-hearted commitments. It was time to experiment with less. 

So on October 25th, I bought my blog’s domain name and my minimalist journey began. 

I wasn’t sure where to start decluttering, but soon settled on kids’ clothes and toys—I found them the most overwhelming in our home. With significantly fewer clothes and toys, our 4 year old began wanting to help take care of her belongings because the amount was now manageable. She played more deeply and independently, too. 

I couldn’t believe it. I felt like my minimalist experiment was some unshared secret, and now that I was let in on it, I was compelled to tell the world. No longer could minimalism just be an experiment, I decided. It was a way of life. I was all in.

As I journeyed deeper into minimalism, I soon learned there was much more to it than sparking joy. Minimalism was about healing my relationship with my possessions. About getting to the why behind my compulsive consumerism and need to acquire more. About identifying my values and what mattered most in my life. And then making space for just that.

Minimalism wasn’t about counting what I owned or having a home that looked perfect. It was about building an authentic, aligned life around what made me come alive instead of a life that matched how society said I “should” live.

As I embraced the ideology of minimalism and let it inform my life, letting go of possessions that no longer served me felt natural.

It didn’t happen overnight, but we got rid of more than half our stuff over the course of the year. We downsized from a house to an apartment home. Life became less stressful and much more meaningful. 

Life didn’t become perfect. My problems didn’t completely disappear when we donated our stuff. But minimalism built more margin in my life, which gave me a greater capacity to deal with life’s trials more intentionally. 

Donald Miller said in his book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life, “Once you live a good story, you get a taste for a kind of meaning in life, and you can’t go back to being normal; you can’t go back to meaningless scenes stitched together by the forgettable thread of wasted time.” 

How do you feel about the story you’re writing with your life? Ask yourself that today. If life feels like meaningless scenes stitched together by wasted time, then you can change that. I did and I have no doubt that you can, too. 

We get this one life. Let’s have the courage to go against mainstream culture, to live with less, and to make our life stories meaningful.

I’d love to hear your minimalist story: Where are you on your simplicity journey? What struggles are you facing in this journey? How has living with less made your life more meaningful? DM me on Instagram or email me at julianurse@gmail.com to share! 

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Julia Ubbenga is a freelance journalist whose teachings on minimalism, simplicity, and intentional living have reached thousands of people worldwide through her blog. Julia practices what she preaches in her Kansas City apartment home with her husband, two extremely lively young daughters, and one-year-old son. You can also find her on Instagram.

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I want to help you design a simple, intentional life! I’ve created a 30-day course that will guide and inspire you to make actual change in your life by decluttering your home, heart and schedule. It’s time to live focused on what matters! Learn more HERE.