Nota Neeza: Konsep minimalisme

Bismillah..

Minimalisme. Atau dalam istilah islamiknya - Qanaah = rasa cukup dengan apa yang sudah ada. Hidup tidak berlebih-lebihan.

Qanaah perlu dilatih. Manusia secara tabiatnya tidak qanaah.
"Sesungguhnya manusia itu dijadikan tabiat berkeluh kesah. Apabila dia ditimpa kesusahan, dia sangat resah gelisah, dan apabila dia beroleh kesenangan, dia sangat bakhil kedekut." Surah Al-Maarij, 70:19-21.

I've been reading about this minimalism life style for quite sometimes. Thanks to those friends who share the website on the FB. One article "How this mom gain back her sanity" (not the exact title but similar maybe) really caught my attention. She was a full time housewife with four kids (same as me), and her problem was too many clean up to be done - she clean up the kitchen, the living room is in mess, she clean up the living room, the other room will be in mess - and for her, this clean up thingie is like a never ending story and as she is about to go crazy in cleaning up, she decided to threw away all her kids toy, living just a truck for the eldest son, a doll for the #2, a teddy bear for #3 and a rattle for the youngest. And amazingly she said, by a week, she did less clean up (because most of the time she is cleaning up her kids' toys) and the kids behave well, playing happily with only one toy.

So, I decided to give a try. Mind you that this is not an overnight process. We been gradually transform ourselves with minimalism life-style maybe 3 years now. It started when we move to a temporary house to renovate our own house. Once we get back, the first thing that triggered me to throw away the unnecessary things is when my kitchen has become smaller. The dry kitchen is now a dining room and the cabinets were moved to the wet kitchen. With only parts of the cabinets left (the rest was thrown away), which make me realise that all this while, I've been keeping junk in it. So, I threw away some of the chinas - the plates, the cups, the teapots (most of them was never been use, and all of them I got from our wedding gifts), baby bottles (mostly Zahra's as others is direct bf). Of course I did not simply dump them, I gave to those who will appreciate them. What left are those plates, cups, mugs, and jugs that we need and use. And Alhamdullillah, since then the items remained in its quantity (maybe decreased as there's mugs that fall and break).

Next we clean up our wardrobe. Subhanallah, could you believe this, for someone who wears black all the time, I have 25 pieces of that "one and only colored" abayas. I was like, Oh my, what am i thinking. why la I need to have more than 10 same colored dress, and to make more interesting, three of the abayas, have duplicates - same design, same brand, same colour. Subhanallah!! So I donated 20 of the abayas, living only 5 for my own use, and I was so relieve to see that the wardrobe are now breathable. Hubby then joining the 'party' and he also get rid most of his unused shirts living those that he wears often. We also clean up the kids cloths, living only a drawer for each kids, which is the essential cloths.

The next is, yes, we get rids of the kid's toys, the big-big trucks, the small-small cars, tiny little human figurines, the messy hairs little ponies, and what left is a small box of littlest pet shop's animals for the girls and lego's for the boys. And Alhamdullillah, I should have do this earlier. Because YES, I gain back my sanity by removing away the kids toys. They play what they only have and yes, they clean up after they play, unlike previously when they have various type of toys, they play this, they play that, living everything in a big huge mess here and there.

And we decided to keep this life-style. Buying more is not an option unless we need it. Seriously, I am so sick of having so many things. Feels suffocated, and as for now, I am so happy to see wide-wide space of our living room, in our own rooms, and in the wardrobes.

But of course, I can said that I've been naturally-shaping with this kind of life-style before I even know what minimalism is all about. I am such a simple plain person. No make up, no collection of handbags, that one pair of shoes is enough, even before I get married, I am so used to live like this. So to transform myself to living with less item for me is not that hard to do.

And as you might wonder, how's about the memories?

Well, my answer is: We keep memories in mind, NOT in things :)

Sharing some pictures:

My own wardrobe. I dont used that kain batik but keeping for if anything.

Kids room - the drawer is the boys cloths. Each for one. So when there's the baju come in (like the Raya's baju), the old baju will have to bid farewell. The boys pun suka their own wardrobe sebab senang nk cari baju lepas mandi. The toys that only left for the boys are the lego's. And they spent hours playing with them every-single-day.