My grandmother immigrated to Canada for a better life. And while she built a great life here, I still remember an off-handed comment she made at a Christmas gathering:

“You know, we had so much less growing up and we were so much happier.”

Understandably, we live in a different time and place and the needs of today are unrecognizable to the world of yesterday—so it’s important we don’t look to the past through rose coloured glasses as some golden benchmark for today. But there’s wisdom in that comment.

Our society is saturated with the need for more.

This isn’t just material goods (more and bigger), but also in every other aspect of how we function: more success, ambition, health, knowledge, social connections, etc.

The minimalist movement that surfaced in the blogosphere during the late 2000s (and still going today) is an attempt to counteract this pressure for more. From my point of view, it’s a great community suggesting a series of actions while looking for an underlying philosophy… but suffers from minimalist posturing as a status marker (“look how little I own!”).

It’s actually not a bad place to start because form can often follow function. However, it’s real strength isn’t getting you to get rid of all your stuff and commitments (both are good things to pare down anyway), but getting you to consider where your happiness lies.

I have no doubt my grandmother would’ve never given up what she had here to live with nothing again, but she understood the inadequacy of our culture’s understanding of satisfaction.

Which is something we desperately need right now.