I couldn’t focus on anything, and I was always wasting time. “I was always comparing myself with other people who had more or better things, which often made me miserable.The Old Version of Himself (Pre-Minimalism): “My definition of a minimalist is a person who knows what is truly essential for him or herself, who reduces the number of possessions that they have for the sake of things that are really important to them.”.“Minimalism - reducing your belongings to just the minimal essentials.”.“Minimalism is a lifestyle in which you reduce your possessions to the absolute minimum you need.”.People who live that way are the ones I consider to be minimalists.” “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.He breaks part of the book into the following sections: 55 tips to help you say goodbye to your things 15 more tips for the next stage of your minimalist journey 12 ways I’ve changed since I said goodbye to my things.Though it isn’t my sole motivation, I want to prove to myself that there’s some kind of value to my existence.” “It’s also partly why I wrote this book.That’s the minimal version of the message that I’d like to convey in this book.” That’s why it’s time to say goodbye to all our extra things. Quick Summary of Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism by Fumio Sasaki “When you think about it, there isn’t a single person who was born into this world holding some material possession in their hands.” - Fumio Sasaki He introduced me to some new minimalist terminology I’m interested to explore further: color minimalism, information minimalism (although maybe this is just another term for preventing decision fatigue), and LOHAS (lifestyles of health and sustainability). Fumio has obviously deeply studied the subject of minimalism and implemented it in his lifestyle. Just a normal person trying to figure things out in the world.Īlthough it seems like he has a slight obsession with Steve Jobs/Apple and some of his examples show the extremes of how minimalism can manifest itself (radical minimalism), I still took away a lot of positives from this book. The reason I like this book is because he’s like any of us. Yet, he says minimalism has opened his mind and life to a happiness he’s never before experienced. “I haven’t accomplished much yet and there’s nothing that I can really be proud of, at least not at this point in my life.” And, it’s written by someone who isn’t a well-known author, speaker, top simple living leader, or Zen Buddhist teacher like Haemin Sunim.įumio Sasaki is 35 years old, male, single, Japanese, and lives in Tokyo. It opened my eyes to the universal nature of minimalism and to the Japanese culture. Goodbye, Things by Fumio Sasaki is a breath of fresh air.

Goodbye things by fumio sasaki