Transcending Your Stuff - Adopting a Minimalist Lifestyle

One of my favorite lines from the classic movie, Cool Hand Luke, is said by the prisoner Luke after he bluffs his way to victory in a card game.

Dragline:  Nothin'. A handful of nothin'. You stupid mullet head. He beat you with nothin'. Just like today when he kept comin' back at me - with nothin'.
Luke:  Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
(IMDB Movie Database Cool Hand Luke Quotes 

It's a pretty deep line.  Sometimes, the world deals you a pretty bad hand.  But, no one says how you have to play the game.

What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate scene - Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke

 You can rebel.  One way that some folks rebel is by adopting a minimalist lifestyle.  They intentionally rid themselves of excess stuff and adopt a lifestyle of owning only the material possessions they feel add value to their lives.

It's an interesting thought.  In a world that often judges success by who has the most toys, choosing not to play is an interesting alternative.  Minimalists save a lot of money and avoid a lot of debt by simply NOT buying a bunch of stuff.

For an interesting blog on the subject, check out The Minimalists.

The bloggers, Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemu, walk the walk and live with a minimum of personal possessions.  They find that it frees them to do more and live in a manner that they want to live.

They've written an interesting book that is available on Amazon.