‘If you build it, he will come.’ Kevin Costner was superb in the classic movie ‘Field of Dreams’. The plot of the movie is built around the construction of a baseball diamond out in the middle of a cornfield in Iowa. However, I don’t want to go into the true meaning of the movie and spoil it for those of you who may not have seen it yet. Instead, I want to change around the line ‘If you build it, he will come.’ and have a little bit of fun with it in a silly analogy as it relates to minimalism.

In the move, Kevin Costner hears a voice which he interprets is telling him to build a baseball diamond. He subsequently plows his cornfield under to build a baseball field. Once the field is completed, players from the past, like Shoeless Joe Jackson and others show up to play ball. OK, so here is where my silly analogies start to come in regarding minimalism.

‘If it’s empty, fill it up.’ In the movie, as soon as the baseball diamond was finished players started showing up. Now in our lives, there are a couple of directions we can go with this one. Firstly, just because there is space in our homes, doesn’t mean we have to fill it up with stuff. Space is not a bad thing. Clutter in our homes is a bad thing. Items in our homes which exist solely to make the room feel right are bad things. Secondly, why do we have so much space in the first place? Does it seem the homes are still getting bigger and bigger where you live? Why do we believe a bigger than I need home is better? All too often that home brings on more debt, stress, upkeep and time wasted. I’m a strong believer in a right sized home containing only the things I truly need or desire.