“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Let this sink for a moment.
We all want the perfect life. The perfect job. The perfect house.
What society tells us is that more is better, and the more you have, the better it gets; so when you have it all, it must be perfect, right? Until you realize that more is also more stress, more anxiety, more worries.
Saint-Exupéry encourages us to reduce, to subtract, to simplify, to get to the core of things. When the unnecessary, the superfluous, the inefficient is taken away, what is left is perfection and elegance; not only of the material possessions. There are many studies about the unhealthy relation of a cluttered environment and our mental state.
Minimalism is a way to be content with less. If you reduce the things in your life to what you use and what adds value, you are at the essence. Nothing left to take away.