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Becker argues in Passage 2 that minimalism is the antidote to the materialistic values of today’s world. (Para 4) 

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Becker argues in Passage 2 that minimalism is the antidote to the materialistic values of today’s world. (Para 4) 

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Becker exalts minimalism in Passage 2 as a form of escape from the clutter in life, bringing mental clarity, alignment to one’s values and inner peace. (Para 2) 

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Becker exalts minimalism in Passage 2 as a form of escape from the clutter in life, bringing mental clarity, alignment to one’s values and inner peace. (Para 2) 

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In Passage 1, Urist claims that minimalism is driven by the desire to manage impressions and present one’s best face rather than ideals of frugality and inner well-being. (Para 4) 

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In Passage 1, Urist claims that minimalism is driven by the desire to manage impressions and present one’s best face rather than ideals of frugality and inner well-being. (Para 4) 

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Introduction:

I agree with Becker's point in passage 2 that minimalism allow people to escape from the clutter in life, bringing mental clarity, alignment to one's value and inner peace.

In the context of Singapore, people often pursue materialistic items fueled by the relentless pace of one's hectic lifestyles and the need to keep up with the cost of living.

Body:

The fast pace urban lifestyle often leads to high level of stress and constant demands. Therefore minimalism can serve as a valuable strategy to escape clutter in various aspect of life.

For example, time management. Minimalism encourages people to re-evaluate their commitments and prioritise meaningful activities to escape the clutter of overburden schedule.

Much like Becker's journey, the city's fast paced lifestyle calls for the need to tone down and live a minimalistic lifestyle, a tangible solution.

Conlusion:

In conclusion, minimalism in Singapore is a holistic approach that offers a clear escape from the pressures in life and simplifying life. Furthermore it offers a deep inner peace in one's heart and mind.

HIDDEN QN TO MS SIN: DEFINE 23S06

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Passage 2 states that minimalism is about prioritising things that bring value to one's life. It is only true antidote to the materialistic values of today's world. Minimalistic consumers prefer simplicity, abstain from indulging in materialism and minimise their dependence on materialistic things for seeking instant gratification. Hence, we agree to a large extent that minimalism brings about more merits than drawbacks. A 2018 survey found that Singaporeans want to move up the values ladder, moving from prioritising basic needs to higher order values, more generally the personal values selected indicates the desire to move beyond living a life narrowly focused on pursuing material well being and seek a well balanced purposeful life, dedicated to serving the wider community.

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introduction

we agree with beckers point that minimalism is an antidote to today’s materialistic world. Minimalism is a focus on embracing quality over quantity which serves a purpose to enhance the life experience of one. When people start to look at things in a minimalistic way, they get to live a more satisfactory life

for example,

Singaporean socialite Jamie Chua reveals Sentosa Cove hime via house tour on social media. And the comments have shown many comments which were envy towards her success and her materialistic purchase. And this might lead to unhealthy comparison of their current lifestyle to a materialistic one. When you have a minimalistic lifestyle you tend to focus more on what they deem as affordable which leads to lesser material good being purchased just to show off. Once they live a simpler life , they would only focus on items they need, and not feel overwhelmed with the clutter.Hence, a minimalistic life is the antidote to today's materialistic world.

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I agree with beckers point that helps people find inner peace, mental clarity and alignment with their values allowing them to remove clutter from their lives. In Singapore today, people are quite materialistic, always buying things that they see are a good deal. The prominence of online shopping has further fuelled this, with Singaporeans being one of the top online shopping platform users. Many Singaporeans also use shopping as a way to escape their hectic lifestyles and destress. Regina Wong, the founder of minimalism lifestyle website Live Well With Less said that minimalism is about being free of physical, emotional and financial clutter, not about depravation. This means that contrary to popular belief, minimalism does not make your life worse, it actually makes it better, it allows people to not have so much things on their plate. For example, only having several sets of clothes means that they have saved their money on clothes and the save money can go into their savings for a rainy day. It can also save space in land deprived Singapore. This frees people of physical and emotional burdens. This is especially true in the fast paced city of Singapore, where people already have enough things to be worried about, this can lessen their worries and improve their well being. In conclusion, minimalism can be a way of life that should be considered by many Singaporeans owing to the fast paced lifestyle here and the solutions that minimalism can bring to said problems.

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Passage 2 states that living a minimalistic lifestyle encourages one to focus on what is important in life, instead of wanting to make an impression on others by constantly buying materialistic items. Minimalism influences one to pursue living life to the fullest through spending time with loved ones, as well as giving back to society. This combats the materialistic values in today's world which pressures us to give in to greedy and selfish desires.

For example, 2022 Quality of Life Survey found that people who prioritise material possessions and the finer things in life were the most unhappy, despite being better off financially. As such, those who focus on simply purchasing material goods only causes one to place more emphasis on pursuing even more goods, feeding  heavily into the materialistic values in today's world. hence, by living minimally, it serves as an 'antidote' to these materialistic values, and allows one to prioritise one's emotional well-being and of that around them.

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Timous & Riane Valencia Lysander Herrera

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Timous & Riane Valencia Lysander Herrera

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I agree that minimalism brings more drawbacks than merits. Those that indulge in the minimalistic lifestyle just do it to impress people rather than doing it for one's wellbeing. This is a drawback as it goes against personal value and what the person really wants, making the lifestyle very robotic and fake. While it provides temporary satisfaction from people's perception of you but can be mentally exhausting to keep up in the long run, especially if it is a forced behaviour that is done solely to conform to society's expectations.

For example, in my society today people dress similar to what is currently in trend, instead of going for their own personal style which coincides with their personalities. Thus this shows society's conformity to what is considered "normal". Hence minimalism brings more drawbacks.

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In passage 2, Becker posits that minimalism enables people to escape from the clutter in life, bring mental clarity and align one’s values and inner peace.

I disagree with Becker’s postulations.

Leading a spartan and minimalistic lifestyle has detrimental psychological impacts that will not bring mental clarity and inner peace to the individual. Minimalism can make one feel uncomfortable and unsatisfied with their standard of living, despite being in a less cluttered environment. Purchasing items, or even thinking about something we have that we enjoy using releases dopamine in our brain, which makes us feel good and serves as a distraction from our problems in life. As mentioned in passage 1, having more physical items brought people immense comfort. In a wealthy country like Singapore with impressionable citizens, minimalism deviates from societal norms. Seeing others with trendy and attractive clothing as well as fancy gadgets can cause people who practice minimalism to have an inferiority complex. This does not bring mental clarity and inner peace to the individual. They may be pondering about their lifestyle choices and whether they should continue embracing minimalism.

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I agree with Becker’s point that minimalism allows us to escape from clutter in our lives, reintroduces clarity to our thoughts and realigns our actions with our values.

By choosing minimalism, instead of worrying over how other people may judge us based on the material possessions that we have and thus constantly wanting more and higher-quality things, we can freely express ourselves and focus more on making our lives as fulfilling as possible, by having an ultimate life goal to strive for.

In a society like Singapore, where there is high competition and quick pace, people are influenced into buying more things, whether they be clothing, food or technology, due to a general rise in incomes. This is being engendered by the rising popularity of social media, where people can do just a few taps on a screen and be exposed to a wide range of fashion or technological trends that are continuously being renewed. In order to impress other people, we tend to over-purchase things that are more luxurious but are in fact unnecessary. This is a contributing factor to the stress of living in Singapore, mostly caused by financial concerns and anxiety over the ability to make ends meet.

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Passage 2 states that minimalism prevents people from succumbing to the consumeristic society. Minimalism promotes a lifestyle where people consume less and buy only what they need, which discourages them from chasing possessions. In Singapore where consumer culture permeates all of our lives, minimalism acts as an antidote to help people overcome overconsumption. It allows them to make conscious and better decisions, achieving freedom from consumerism. Hence, we agree to this statement.

For instance, in Singapore, there is a popular blog called ‘Minimalist In The City’ (minimalistinthecity.com) founded by Kate and Dave, who created this blog to inspire others to pick up a minimalist lifestyle by sharing their journey. They reported that many of their members embraced minimalism as a reaction to excessive consumerism, with not few reacting specifically to having parents who are hoarders. One such client Nat Liew had stated that through this blog, he realised how important it is to prioritise human interactions over possessions. As a result, he wanted to keep his place as clean as possible as accumulation of stuff was a distraction to him.

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In passage 2, Becker states that minimalism is a form of escaping from the clutter in life, bringing mental clarity and alignment to one's values. I disagree with this view. While it might be true for him to say that with minimalism, he 'was able to pursue lasting purpose' and not buy unnecessary things just because they are trending, this cannot be applied in Singapore's context.

Singaporeans, in general, have the FOMO (fear of missing out) mindset. This is reflected in Singapore's queuing culture, where individuals might join a random queue simply because their kiasu mindset convinces them that the queue is for something valuable. Singaporeans find joy and satisfaction under this mindset, making it challenging for them to adapt to the minimalist lifestyle. When they see others with the latest trending items, it is almost impossible for Singaporeans to resist temptation and practice minimalism.

In conclusion, while we cannot deny the benefits that minimalism can bring, under Singapore's context, it contradicts the Singaporean way of life. It does not bring them mental clarity, align with their values, or foster inner peace through minimalism.

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In passage 2, minimalism is hailed as a means for one to escape from the hectic lifestyles we face, and that it helps us to focus on the intrinsic values that we aspire to follow. I believe that a minimalist lifestyle could be the perfect refuge one can seek in the fast-moving and stressful Singapore. In Singapore, citizens often are entrapped in "Kiasu" and "Kiasi" cultures, which basically mean that one is afraid to lose out. Hence, this makes our Singaporean culture a perfect breeding ground for competition, generating high levels of stress for Singaporeans of all age groups. This can be seen from trivial matters such as Singaporeans forming long queues at stores with special discounts, or parents placing immense stress on children to study. I believe that these are the many goals tasks that we as Singaporeans clutter our mindspaces with. Therefore, I believe that minimalism is one of the best solutions to this. Minimalism is not only about decluttering physical objects around us, but as stated in passage 2, it is also about focusing on a lasting purpose, instead of chasing these material goals that we Singaporeans have in mind. Therefore, I believe that minimalism can help Singaporeans realign themselves, and focus on other aspects of our lives, instead of mindlessly chasing various aspects of wealth or educational achievements. This will help us to escape from the insurmountable amount of tasks that we cloud our schedules with, and it will help to significantly reduce the stress we have in life.

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I agree with Becker's statement about minimalism in Passage 2. Embracing minimalism can undoubtedly serve as a transformative escape from the complexities of modern life, facilitating mental clarity, alignment with personal values, and inner peace. By intentionally simplifying one's possessions, commitments, and surroundings, individuals often find a heightened sense of focus on what truly matters to them. In the context of my society, a notable example of minimalism fostering mental clarity and alignment with values can be observed in the "50 Things Less" movement initiated by Our Singapore Conversation. This movement encourages participants to declutter their lives by identifying and eliminating 50 unnecessary possessions, activities, or habits. Through this minimalist approach, participants reported a sense of liberation from the overwhelming clutter of consumerism, leading to improved mental well-being, a clearer sense of purpose, and a deeper connection to their core values. This new embrace of minimalism reflects a growing recognition of its potential to offer an escape from the noise of modern living, bringing about a harmonious blend of mental clarity and inner peace