Minimalism: The Key that Can Unlock Your Life

Even though my girlfriend and I bought a fully-converted van from Dave and Matt Vans, we've still invested some serious time in setting up our storage and getting it dialed in for our specific uses. In particular, our under bed storage area came as a totally blank slate, requiring us that to take it from the top and spend some time thinking about how to maximize the storage space, fit all of the adventure gear we need, and still be able to access certain things on a regular basis.

Then we had to think, "Ok, what type of adventure gear do we actually need? How often do we use each piece of gear, and how mission-critical is it to have this gear with us?"

Living in a van mandates that every single physical possession that you retain has a purpose, and that you intend to use it frequently or at least very soon. If you don't intend to use the possession that often, then it isn't worth the precious space that it's taking up. For instance, do we really need to be hauling around three bikes with us? Would two bikes serve 90% of our purposes? Could we substitute a bike that's not quite optimized for the use case, and still get by?

Photo: Brent Thomas

This decision matrix even applies to smaller possessions. Do I really need to store three pairs of jeans, or will one pair do? If I have two button-down shirts that have the same color scheme, do I really need both of them?

Even dealing with these decisions and questions required a lot of time and mental decision-making energy. I would have hated to have built the entire interior from scratch and have had to invest the same deliberation at every single juncture, with every single feature that went into the van. Even still, we agonized over the optional upgrades that we included—whether or not we needed things like extra dinette seating, a heater, etc.

Moving Into a Van = Forced Minimalism

While the process of making these decisions felt painful and laborious at points, moving into a van is essentially an exercise in forced minimalism. Granted, we had the advantage of traveling full-time even before moving into the van, and so we'd already worked hard to cut our possessions down. Even still, we had to continue to cut and cull, reduce and leave behind.

In the process of deciding what to keep, and what to leave behind.

t's no secret that the minimalism movement is gaining ground around the world. People realize that as they reduce the number of physical possessions they own, they have fewer things to worry about, fewer things to deal with. The saying, "the more you own, the more that owns you," is proven absolutely true.

Take mountain bikes, for example. You'd think that by owning several different mountain bikes, you could spread out the wear and tear across all of the bikes, and spend less time doing maintenance and fixing broken bikes.

Not so!

Somehow, it seems like all of the bikes break and wear out at the same time, and instead, you actually invest more time and more money fixing bikes than you did before. Instead of running to the shop to get your main whip serviced, you're constantly dropping off the backup bike, the fat bike, the gravel bike, etc. to get something or other done. 

Maintenance Sucks Your Life Energy Dry

Maintaining material objects takes time. Whether it's a mountain bike, an automobile, or even a computer, many physical possessions that we originally purchased to make our life easier or more fun instead end up demanding our time and draining our life energy away.

Much less maintenance required when your home is this size. 

The most poignant example to me is homeownership. I've already asked, "what's the point of owning a home anyway?" in part because I think back to my years of homeownership and how many hours per week I would invest in maintenance, upgrades, and keeping my residence clean and functional. I had purchased a house for a great price, but it was absolutely massive. Having bought it in foreclosure, there were tons of maintenance tasks across the property that had been neglected—some, for years.

After years of working to catch up on those backlogged maintenance tasks and fixing other things that broke along the way, I reached a point where most of the big-ticket items had been resolved. One of those expensive repairs was getting the outside of this massive wooden house re-stained in the first year. But about the time that I had everything else more-or-less resolved 3 years later, I realized that the outside of the house already needed to be stained again! I had an epiphany that there was no way that I could physically keep up with the maintenance load required by this building unless I invested dozens of evenings every summer to staining at least one wall of the building per year, simply to keep up with the harsh Colorado sun.

But I didn't want to spend my life serving a building. I wanted a building that would serve me instead, that would help meet my needs and enable my lifestyle. I wanted to spend my life being active outside, exploring the mountains. Instead of a lifestyle enabler, I had bought a time and money pit that was promising to suck my reserves dry for the rest of my existence.

More time painting walls, or more time riding up mountains?

The Beauty of Minimalism

When you have fewer physical objects that demand your time and attention to maintain them, move them, clean them, store them, and insure them, you can free up massive amounts of time that can be used elsewhere. Whether you can use that time to go on your next big adventure, read more books, or travel the world, minimalism is a key that can unlock your life.

When you're comfortable living out of a suitcase or a backpack for years on end, physical possessions cease to have control over your life. When you know exactly what you need to live a happy and healthy life—nothing more, nothing less—you've won at the game of consumerism. You've unlocked the secret to exploring the world with reckless abandon.

Welcome to the #VanLife lifestyle.