K.I.S.S. Blog Ideas - Week 98: What Sparked my Minimalist Journey

What influenced my minimalist journey from the inception of my life till date?

Life has never been fair, it's a harsh world, life comforted me, and life humbled me. I wasn't born with a silver spoon. Life made me a minimalist.

I'm the third child in my family. Based on the story my parents told me before I was born. My Dad struggled all his life, his Dad was an abattoir worker, a broke man who found it very difficult to take care of his children, My Dad also lost his Mum around the age of nine. He struggled all his life with him making success his priority even when he had no hope.

Somehow he managed to complete his secondary education and still struggled to find his way to Italy for tertiary education.

This an image from my phone's gallery

While my Mum was working here in Nigeria as a Nursing sister that was around 1977 and 1978. He told me he struggled a lot in Italy to be successful, but unfortunately, the person who sponsored his education abroad died and he had to manage his way till he finished his studies in Italy, where he later came back to Nigeria a few years later.

Nigeria didn't smile at him as he had no one to assist him and he kept struggling to make sure he became successful, investing with the little cash he brought from Italy, unfortunately, Nigeria is not a country with stable economic policies and that affected his business greatly, and somehow, things didn't work for him.

Even for the fact that it was hard, we still lived an average lifestyle, a minimalist one, but things got a lot more difficult, a lot more is an understatement, things got completely difficult, and that was between the middle 1990s and late 1990s. My Mum lost her job and the hit began.
It got to all of us, it was overwhelming and terrible. It was just us and no one to help. Feeding was a problem, I got used to hunger, my parents couldn't afford to buy enough clothes, I got used to wearing what I got, and fate took away the childhood experience every other child got.

But my parents did a wonderful job, saw education as the only solution to our problems, and spent every penny they had on our education.

Today the four children my parents gave birth to are educationally successful, one is a lecturer, one is a permanent resident in Canada, I am a teacher and the only girl among us is a successful entrepreneur.

We are doing fine but do not live an extravagant life because I do not see it as a fulfilling thing to live extravagantly. It's just something I wasn't used to all my life. Even the most beautiful day of my life (My wedding day) was low-key, just traditional and simple, it was a minimalist style of wedding. Very few family members and less than eight friends.

This an image from my phone's gallery

I'm a social person, but I won't go to a spot where you'll have to spend all your returns on investment on social satisfaction. I use average-priced things, as long as it's needed and looks smart on me.

I believe life shouldn't be extravagant, but everything has to be minimal, living a lousy lifestyle doesn't define you as being rich, though this may be because of my experience growing up. But I believe this is just who I am.