Hello everyone
Today’s blog is going to be a little bit different. If you ever read my Fit & Fabulous blog it may not be too different, but today’s blog is about some musings that I have had over the past few weeks.
I’ve recently gone down the rabbit hole of minimalism, specifically The Minimalists podcast. It has been fascinating. When you think about it, it makes sense, for those of you who have followed my blogs for years will know that I love having a capsule wardrobe. When I came to Australia you would think I gave some thought about creating a capsule wardrobe for my work clothes, but no I just went ohh look at all these clothes and bought what I wanted rather than having a plan. The reality is a capsule wardrobe sits nicely within the world of Minimalism. I however like to refer to the idea more along the lines of essentialism.
I’ve also spent the last six months or so getting into stoic philosophy. Epicurus always appealed to me, but now I understand a bit more about different schools of philosophy. I’ve purchased (on my kindle) a couple of books about stoic philosophers and found that really interesting. Though please note that Epicurus is not a stoic philosopher.
So how does stoicism and minimalism meld together? I’m not sure, but I think it is something I will explore over the next few months.
I do like the idea of owning less things – especially as we don’t have the room for everything we own and as some of our stuff is still at my mums – we have effectively lived without it since March 2019 – I think we can safely say we either don’t need it or don’t want it. The reality is whatever we buy here in Perth will not be as big as our French house (and let’s be honest that wasn’t huge). Therefore, do I/we need all this stuff?
Perhaps the philosophical side of this is to adjust my thinking about what I thought my life would look like in my 50’s. My life is now very different to how I imagined it even 5 years ago. I didn’t think I would be starting again in a (effectively) new country (you can challenge this thought – but trust me Perth has changed incredibly over the time I’ve been away). I try to take this guiding tenet of stoicism with me – being able to make the distinction between what is in my power to change and what is not. It’s a good way of looking at the world as it enables one to at least try to not worry about the things that I have no way of changing.
On that note, I shall finish up my musings and let you know. Our next blog will be soon and it will have some wonderful photos from our short holiday to the north of Australia.
Until next time.