Minimalism is about living with less. It has become a popular living style. We surely will meet someone who likes the concept. Having some basic knowledge and fascinating stories will help us understand them, connect with them, or even become one of them.​​

​Why minimalism 
Minimalism is attractive because we can notice many benefits after applying it in our lives. The lifestyle allows us to stay present and save money, time, and energy to focus on the most important things. 

Minimized possessions can foster happiness because buying too many things relies on the stress and burdens of possession. When we unwisely fill our house with junk, we also have to spend time and energy considering where to keep all the stuff, maintain it, and even get rid of it becomes a tough decision. 

Minimalism is also about not overthinking. Overthinking can affect our judgment and cause stress. 

Who is well-known as a minimalist
Frank Stella is known as the first minimalist. "Minimalism emerged in the late 1950s when artists such as Frank Stella, whose Black Paintings were exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1959, began to turn away from the gestural art of the previous generation." 

Steve Jobs is also a famous minimalist with a simple dress code and lifestyle and a company that follows a unique minimalist culture. From 1998 to 2010, he consistently wore a black turtleneck, jeans, and a sneaker for the corporate announcements. ​

Google's one search bar interface is also a representation of ​minimalism.

How to become a minimalist
For those interested in adopting the lifestyle, there is one book and one website that you will want to take advantage of. 

Danshari (断舍离) was published in 2009 by Yamashita Hideko. The title is in Japanese, meaning "refuse," "dispose," and "separate." Refuse means not buying something you need. Minimalism suggests buying only for three reasons: buy something to make life easier, make it happier, or bring unique experiences. Dispose of all unused stuff—separate means detaching things from our life. The yoga practice concept was created by Oki Masahiro (1921-1985).

Theminimalists.com has many exciting suggestions, such as: How many items do you need to live as a minimalist?

How to practice minimalism
When talking about minimalism practices, we collected some exciting topics. 

To refuse...

• One in One Out means not buying a new item if the old one is still in use. 
• Buy the 1st option with high quality within the most demand. Otherwise, you will end up buying more if you compromise.

To dispose of...

• Minimizing the Living Room: Consider removing pillows, rugs, and unread books. 
• Minimizing the closets: removing clothes that do not spark joy or haven't been worn for one year and sticking to a simple dressing style.
• Minimizing kitchen: Remove items paying expiration date, use tools for at most one year, or have duplicates.
• We can take pictures of the gift without use and then let them go. 
• It's difficult to dispose of because of endowment bias. One tip from Sasaki Fumio(佐佐木) is, "If you think of getting rid of one thing five times, then let it go."

There are no correct answers to becoming a minimalist. Therefore, you will have much fun chatting with others about their understanding and practices. ​

We discussed the Law of Attraction sometime ago. Today, let's discuss its relationship between manifestation and visualization. In personal development and spiritual growth, all of three concepts are often connected to achieving one's desires.

The Law of Attraction is the philosophical principle suggesting that similar energies attract each other. Positive thoughts attract positive results, while negative thoughts might attract undesirable outcomes. The law of attraction is often cited as the underlying mechanism explaining manifestation and visualization's effectiveness. By maintaining a positive mindset and emotionally resonant visions of success, individuals are thought to attract the circumstances and opportunities necessary to achieve their goals.

Manifestation refers to the process of bringing one's desires or goals into reality through focused intention and belief advocated by Neville Goddard. It is an overarching term that encapsulates various techniques, including positive thinking or affirmations, visualization, meditation, and employing the law of attraction and gratification. The core idea behind manifestation is that aligning one's thoughts and energies with desired outcomes makes it possible to actualize them in the real world.

Visualization is a specific technique used within the broader practice of manifestation. This method involves creating mental images or scenarios that depict one's goals as already achieved. By regularly engaging in visualization, individuals can focus their intentions and foster a mental environment where success feels attainable and vivid. Visualization acts as a mental rehearsal, preparing the mind and spirit to embrace and work towards the visualized outcomes.

We can use these concepts to navigate our personal and professional lives include the efforts to improve health, achieve career success, or foster personal relationships. The practices help shape our destiny consciously.

To explore this topic further, we recommend the following books: 

• Mind to Matter: The Astonishing Science of How Your Brain Creates Material Reality by Dawson Church
• Don't Believe Everything You Think: Why Your Thinking Is The Beginning & End Of Suffering by Joseph Nguyen
• Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One by Dr. Joe Dispenza
• Becoming Supernatural: How Common People Are Doing the Uncommon by Dr. Joe Dispenze
• The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle
• Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe by Laura Lynne Jackson.
• Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment, by Robert Wright​

No matter you believe in that series or not, it is a series that you will not miss to know for personal development.

What's your favorite place at home? If you don't have one, let's explore how to create one for ourselves. 

My favorite place at home is my office. As an introvert and minimalist, my comfortable place contains a clean desk, a computer, a teacup, and a notebook. That is it. It's a relaxing place to stroll the world through the internet, listen to music, read something fun, chat with friends, and write to express my thoughts and ideas... It is a place to escape when I don't have a plan and can do whatever I want. I also put a reminder on my desk to know when to leave my favorite place for essential things, such as tea time with friends, family time, and outside walks. ​

Many places can be favored, such as a home gym, an art studio, a game room, a home theater, a reading nook, a meditation room, and a spa bathroom...To create the favorite place, we can do the followings: 

1. Keep it clean
2. Keep it organized 
3. Get the most fantastic light. 
4. Put on our favorite art. 
5. Make it quiet 
6. Reminder our hobbies 
7. Add a clock and a calendar to remind us about time and when to leave our own world. 
8. Put a lotion so you can apply them when you are relaxing. 
9. Surround ourselves with things we love 
10. Keep a notebook to drop down ideas that spark in our minds.
11. Keep memorable things related to our experiences and family. 
12. Let our pets be with us when they are quiet.
13. Remove food to void overeating. 
14. Add the personalized item that is created by our family members or us. 
15. Add flowers or a diffusion aroma that smell amazing. (I always add jasmine flowers to my desk. Its fragrance is fantastic.)
16. Add white noise, like a water-flowing sound, to create a calming environment.

What's your favorite place?  Join more discussion in Zen club.

6:30AM: Getting up. The temperature shows 65F. It has dropped down almost 10 degrees from a few days ago. I will feel the chills if I go out now. Autumn has arrived. The daily light shows a little. The trees outside can show their shape. The morning is reaching. We often forget to notice small changes in the outside world. However, those small changes carry a wealth of messages from nature to our lives. 

We can't notice outside if we can't be present. Time flies. Browsing photos in the past, the moments collected are the ones I was present in those moments. 

Hot summer day, a gentle gust of wind passed through the house, pushing the green curtain with a picture of bamboo up and down like dancing in the wind. The weather was hot, and we didn't have air conditioning. The bamboo curtain brought a cooling feeling while watching it play with the wind. There was no sound, just the wind sweeping across. That moment of that Sumer afternoon, I had a dialog with nature. 

Although reluctant to go out in hot weather, my curiosity about getting something to read led to my way to a small library from my mom's business. My favorites were the magazines showing colorful pictures around the world, which were too popular to get. That day, the magazine was so new that it still had the fresh smell of ink. That was the moment of sensing the surroundings and enjoying learning something new. 

The weather was freezing cold. I took a bus with my parents to go downtown. It was a holiday, if I remember right. Everyone outside was wearing their new winter clothes and enjoying the holiday spirit. Passing by the bamboo park, I saw a beautiful lady standing there waiting for someone. It might be a date for her that day. She wore a boot and a lovely jacket, slim and elegant. How attractive she was! That moment of discovering beauty mixed with a little bit of jealousy was a genuinely emotional moment. 

Staying in my room, quiet and peaceful, I'm writing down these words. Time passing. The dawn is approaching. Listen. It's the sound of cars. Many have started their busy day. Breath. Fresh air. Deeply satisfied lung returns with, "yes, this feels great." Feel. The touch of the keyboard let me flow my understanding of nature to the words in this article. It's a moment of now when things are evitably changing, but I have the luxury to save a piece here when I connect with nature. 

Take a moment to discover the change happening around. Every moment comprises the life we are living in. 

Gratitude is an emotion to cherish what we have: love from family, peace in life, and friends who care and help. According to research, gratitude can positively impact our life [1]. However, it's not an emotion we can retain without practice. Discover it in depth. We can find some additional meanings to this emotion.

Grateful is an attitude. Gratefulness doesn't change anything but demands us to recognize from the inside how we feel. There is also no intention to change anything. Instead, when practicing gratitude, we begin with examining where we are, what we love, and who we are ourselves. Rather than complaining about what we don't have and worrying about what we want, practicing gratitude focuses on calmly accepting and appreciating what we already have.

Grateful is a self-reflection. When we feel thankful, we learn what we value the most and what we are looking for in life. For example, when we are grateful to have a friend listening to our story. We respect the person who can take the time to understand. Then we can also spend time understanding others. When we are grateful for the quiet time when we can enjoy reading, we can spend more time on it as we appreciate that a lot. Listing all the things that we are grateful for. Those are things we need to achieve in our life. 

Grateful is an expression. Express our gratefulness is necessary to respond to these emotions. This year, the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) includes an essay on a thank you note "Write a short thank-you note to someone you have not yet thanked and would like to acknowledge. (We encourage you to share this note with that person, if possible, and reflect on the experience!)." It's an interesting topic, and it rotted in the caring culture in UPenn and the positive psychology research by Dr. Martin E.P. Seligman. Notice the recommendation to send the note out. Gratitude expresses kindness to the people around that make us happy and to others. 

Grateful is a reminder. It reminds us of what we have and the positive things in life. It's a reminder to revisit our values, knowing what matters the most. It's a reminder of saying thank you and build meaningful connections with people. 

​Find one thing to say thank you for today and every day in the next few days. Notice if you and your world can turn to be delighted. ​