What do you think of when you hear the word “minimalists?” Perhaps you imagine, as I once did, a person with one outfit and a cot in a tiny one-room house. Their boring lives, deprived of pleasure, feature drab routines and blank walls, right?  Haha! Wrong!  Permit me to shift your thinking as we look at this popular topic from a different angle. Think of minimalism as 1) a focus on what matters in life and 2) a removal of distractions that pull us from that focus.  This involves realizing that acquiring more stuff won’t bring us more happiness. I think the main reason for the popularity of minimalism is because in the United States we have way too much stuff, and we’re no happier for it. In fact, with all the clutter, cost, and debt, we may even be unhappy because of it. Clutter, clutter, clutter! It hurts us physically, mentally, …