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Goodbye things, hello happiness

By on April 13, 2017

35-year old Fumio Sasaki is a single guy with a regular job as editor at a publishing company. While 35 is the age when some men in Japan settle down and raise a family, the path Sasaki chose was the reverse.

After living in a posh Nakameguro apartment for 10 years wiped out much of his savings, it became clear to him that his possessions were not only possessing him, they were making him miserable and unhappy.

“I wasn’t always a minimalist. I used to buy a lot of things, believing that all those possessions would increase my self-worth and lead to a happier life. I loved collecting a lot of useless stuff, and I couldn’t throw anything away. I was a natural hoarder of knickknacks that I thought made me an interesting person.”

“At the same time, though, I was always comparing myself with other people who had more or better things, which often made me miserable. I couldn’t focus on anything, and I was always wasting time. Alcohol was my escape, and I didn’t treat women fairly. I didn’t try to change; I thought this was all just part of who I was, and I deserved to be unhappy.”

So one day, he decided to make a lifestyle choice. He moved to an apartment in Fudomae where rent is cheaper.

“I said goodbye to a lot of things, many of which I’d had for years. And yet now, I live each day with a happier spirit. I feel more content now than I ever did in the past,” writes Sasaki in his book, ‘goodbye, things: THE NEW JAPANESE MINIMALISM,’ which came out yesterday.

Minimalism is a lifestyle choice that’s mostly practiced in Japan where Zen Buddhism inspires people to live a simple life.

After all the major purging he did in his life, he is down to the bare minimum – a futon where he sleeps, a pillow and a duvet. In his closet are a down jacket, a suit, 3 white shirts and a few pairs of pants.
“I am aiming to create my own uniform with a signature style like Steve Jobs had,” says Sasaki.

How he changed his life may seem extreme for some but here’s what he says about his newfound happiness:

“I was always comparing myself with other people who had more or better things, which often made me miserable. I couldn’t focus on anything, and I was always wasting time. Alcohol was my escape, and I didn’t treat women fairly. I didn’t try to change; I thought this was all just part of who I was, and I deserved to be unhappy.
Meanwhile, I kept comparing myself with others. A friend from college lived in a posh condo on a newly developed land in Tokyo. It had a glitzy entrance and stylish Scandinavian furniture. When I visited, I found myself calculating his rent in my head as he graciously invited me in. He worked for a big company, earned a good salary, married his gorgeous girlfriend, and they’d had a beautiful baby, all dressed up in fashionable babywear. We’d been kind of alike back in college. What had happened, I thought? How did our lives drift so far apart?
It may sound as if I’m exaggerating when I say I started to become a new person. Someone said to me: “All you did is throw things away,” which is true. But by having fewer things around, I’ve started feeling happier each day. I’m slowly beginning to understand what happiness is.
If you are anything like I used to be – miserable, constantly comparing yourself with others, or just believing your life sucks – I think you should try saying goodbye to some of your things. Yes, there are certainly people who haven’t ever been attached to material objects, or those rare geniuses who can thrive amid the chaos of their possessions. But I want to think about the ways that ordinary people like you and me can find the real pleasures in life. Everyone wants to be happy. But trying to buy happiness only makes us happy for a little while. We are lost when it comes to true happiness.

If you are struggling to say goodbye to your things, get tips from Sasaki here.

The book is available on amazon japan for ¥2,500.

About Samantha Mateo