I have read “Goodbye Things” By Fumio Sasaki once before. I was binging a lot of Minimalism content(Ironically) and found that this book was one that goes more into the whole idea and mindshift behing minimizing, instead of going through all rooms in your house and listing what can be removed.
“Goodbye Things” falls more in the hardcore minimalism side of things for me. On one hand you have the people who try to live with x amount of things and try to get as close to 0 as possible and on the other had you have the declutter and keep what you like kind of minimalism. This book falls somewhere in between, it strives towards the absolute minimal but you do get to keep some of your own stuff as well.
The book is written based around three bullet point lists. One from 55 items, 15 and then 12. The first two focus on the items themselves and the last focusses on the idea behind the lifestyle. It starts off by reducing the amount of items you use and own, the basic stuff. Later on in the book Fumio reflects on the changes he went through as a person. He describes his old and new thought process and shows the difference between them. At first he was always comparing himself to others through his objects. Comparing your car with others or even keeping stuff around to maintain an image such as a filled bookcase to show your distinguished book taste.
“In this book, I’ve defined minimalism as (1) reducing our necessary items to a minimum, and (2) doing away with excess so we can focus on the things that are truly important to us. People who live that way are the ones I consider to be minimalists.” - Fumio Sasaki
“Reducing the number of possessions that you have is not a goal unto itself. I think minimalism is a method for individuals to find the things that are genuinely important to them. It’s a prologue for crafting your own unique story.”
In the end most books about Minimalism cover the same issues. There is only some much to talk about when it all boils down to just getting rid of stuff you don’t use. Minimalism is different for everyone, personally I find it fun to see how far I can go using the least amount of resources. Each month I tried to get rid of a few items I did not use so eventually I only keep the ones I do use. Some parts from Goodbye Things helped me get rid of some things a bit easier. Especially making the transition to go paperless.
