Before life used to be in fast lanes, people were minimalist. They used to work hard in the day, earn enough to eat two times, sleep peacefully over the night, and start all over again the next day. They used to respect each other, celebrated, mourned and participated in any events happening in their neighbors together.
But over the years life has not been the same. As the industrial revolution evolved, people turned to cities. They started to face competition and they needed to fight in order to be heard and get what they deserved. We earned. We bought stuff. We felt happy buying stuff. So we earn more to buy more stuff. Slowly we became so habituated with the cycle that we started to drift from what once mattered to us more than anything. We started accumulating things we may not even need. Suddenly a new kind of competition was there. Competition to look more smart. More trendy. More fashionable. Something more to boast about. It never end.
But minimalistic living is something people eventually turns to, when they finally understand that they have enough of the shenanigans of consumerism.