It's the best, but it has limits.

My family and I are very close. Since we are focused, among other things, on giving my mom the help she needs, we are much closer 💞

As part of helping her, I decided to rearrange the house, clean out and throw away a lot of things.

My mom had a lot of old magazines and books in her library, so many that the library looked cluttered, as if someone put things there for a reason but for no purpose. Also, cleaning it was a bit of a chore, as there are also big and small ornaments that have to be removed, washed, dried and put back there.

I told my mom that we could throw various things out of there. Magazines, for example, you can have them in digital, just like books. As for the ornaments, they can be donated or thrown away if they are no longer useful. All of this would take the burden of cleaning and tidying up off her shoulders when I'm not home.

She agreed to leave some, throw some away and donate others. It was a good mommy/daughter moment, we laughed a lot as we did this great feat of choosing what stays and what doesn't. We filled a bag of 8 or 10 kg or so 🤭

My mom had a hard time letting go of some things, but my brother had a much harder time. He is one of those who throws practically nothing away, he has a lot of things in his room. He loves history and historical things, so it wasn't good for him to see everything we had taken out, he even got a little upset. I apologized to him for that 💕

We talked about the many benefits of living with less, about uncluttered spaces, about simplifying and finding a balance between wanting, needing and letting. He keeps his point and I respect it 🙌🏻

From this experience I continue to learn how important it is to respect the boundaries of others. A practice (any practice), like minimalism, can be one of the best things in life, it fills you up, makes you feel free, simplifies your mind, you get to understand and live the essence of life, and so many other good things, however, maybe for someone else it is not possible to see it that way, it is not their way of thinking or it is not logical, that is their limit and right.

I understand that something can be very good or we simply want others to feel as good as we feel, to experience this, but people make their own decisions and those are also valid. To me that's one of the essences of minimalism 💜