It was late in 2013 that the Amazon realization happened. After pulling four years of purchase history on the online shopping website, it hit me like a ton of brown UPS boxes. I had been spending my hard-earned money on one-click solutions to largely made-up problems. While that realization began the process of reducing my online purchase consumption, it didn’t all come together until the end of 2014 – here’s why.
There were a series of events that occurred between the fateful data export in February and making a massive transition in our lives to do away with as much excess stuff as Amy and I could. On April 12th, 2014, I met Joel Zaslofsky at MinneBar 9, a technology ‘unconference’ held at Best Buy Headquarters. It turned out, we had a lot in common: we were both multi-passionate and interested in intentional living and living a life with less mindless consumption. Naturally, we ended up connecting for coffee soon afterwards. It was then I learned about SimpleREV: an event planned by Joel, Andrea Imsdahl, and Sarah Wehkemp. It would be in October of that year, focused on simple living, slowing down, connecting to a strong community of like-minded individuals who wanted more from life than the pursuit of material possessions.
Several months passed and both Amy and I ended up attending the SimpleREV event towards the end of 2014. At the time, we didn’t know exactly what would come of it or what to expect. We weren’t intimately familiar with the minimalism community, bloggers, or speakers at this particular event. It was a new adventure for us to attend, but one thing became apparent:
It didn’t take long before we realized that meeting this wonderful group of people would change our lives forever.
Simply being in a room with 50+ people all working towards the same goal of simplifying, living with less and spending time more intentionally was incredibly powerful. This is where Amy and I learned about minsgame for the first time, which led us to remove over 1,000 things from our home that December. It was this conference that inspired me to start this very blog—along with the support of the community that I met there at SimpleREV. We found incredible inspiration from Joshua Becker, Cheryl & JF Moreau, Jeff Sandquist, David Delp, Kyle & Aeriel Ashlee and so many more.
Sometimes, all it takes is a boost from a strong community trying to accomplish similar goals to jumpstart your success. If you’ve enjoyed reading this blog, have wanted to simplify your life, or if you’ve been interested in finding out what minimalism, experientialism or simple living is all about – I’d like to personally invite you to join this community in Minneapolis, on October 2-3rd, 2015 for the 2nd ever SimpleREV Global Event.
Here’s the real kicker—I enjoyed SimpleREV so much last year that I’m coming back this year to co-host the event with the always incredible Joel Zaslofsky. Along with It’s going to be two full days of fun, learning and sharing with a fantastic group of people. Take a look at the website to learn more about SimpleREV and to see how it can inspire and benefit you on the journey of simplification.
Questions? Leave a comment below or email us at breakthetwitch [at] gmail.com – I’d love to connect with you and talk more about the magic that is SimpleREV.
Disclosure: I am not being compensated in any way for this post, nor my participation in SimpleREV. It really just is that good.