I’ve always been that easy to influence person but it got to its peak in senior high school. You’d always see me trying to be the cool kid because I was friends with people doing all sorts of things to be cool. It started with being extravagant. Although my parents raised my brothers and I to be very frugal and most importantly content, the people I met in school introduced me to a different lifestyle.
Sometimes it felt like a competition or maybe it was a competition because I was always buying things I didn’t need just to stay relevant in the eyes of friends. Talk of trendy bags, shoes, different colours of journals. I was just buying anything and everything. My room was not so different from a mall and the more uglier side? I was always broke. The daughter who could save money to surprise her mother was missing.
Oh and it wasn’t just about buying things I didn’t need. I was always at places I didn’t want to be, meddling in affairs that didn’t concern me. Believe me when I say my life was very chaotic and honestly, I thought that was how it was supposed to be. I thought that was what it meant to enjoy my youth. 
After school, I wasn’t having the energy and the money to keep up with trends anymore. Anytime, these friends asked if I had the new bag, shoes or knew the latest gist , I responded in the negative and eventually, lost all those friends. Honestly, at first I was worried that they were leaving, but after they all left and I made a conscious decision to clear my room, donate most of the things I didn’t even need and not meddle in drama anymore, I got stuck to how I felt afterwards.
At that time, I didn’t even know that was called minimalism but all I knew was that I really loved having only the things I needed. And I hated jumping on trends to buy so many unnecessary things and also wanted nothing to do with the things that could distort my peace of mind.
It’s been years of bliss and tranquility. And when I count my blessings I count my simple lifestyle twice. Sometimes, my mom make fun of the fact that I probably could have bought a house by now if not that I spent so much money buying so many things I didn’t need, years back.
When I was writing this, my emotions dropped below the bar and I suddenly got overwhelmed so I abandoned it for days. I ran as far as my legs could carry me just so I wouldn’t have to relive those moments because each one of them drain me of my conscience. But you know what they say about the past? It’s the reason for the things we know in the present so I’m learning not to be hard on myself when I remember them. After all, the important thing is that I have learned and now live in the light.
Images are mine
