Stuff: How Much Stuff is Too Much Stuff?
As I prepare to pack things for my trip, I am inclined to simplify the process by getting rid of a lot of my stuff. After all, how much stuff is necessary?
Back in 1997-1998 I traveled for a year with only what possessions I could carry on my back. I didn’t have a lot of stuff, but I did manage to survive and be happy. Once you live for a year with only the stuff you can carry, you start to realize how little stuff you really need.
I have an ongoing joke with my friend Arthur that “Stuff is Evil.�? We make endless jokes about how it’s the stuff we have that’s keeping us from doing what we want to do. But we say this only half jokingly, because we both have been long-term backpack-style travellers and we know that too much stuff does slow you down.
Stuff itself isn’t evil, no more than a gun is evil; but stuff can, like a gun, have a negative impact on life.
Every piece of stuff you own demands a tiny fraction of your life. Even if it’s stored in the closet and you never use it, you pay a tiny amount of money to store it and keep it secure (whatever the percent of your rent or mortgage payment is that corresponds to the space that item takes up), you pay to move it, you devote some trivial time and energy to clean it—or clean around it. Maybe it’s only ten cents per item and one minute a year that you devote to it’s upkeep, but when you start multiplying that by the thousands of useless items we acquire over a lifetime, it adds up.
Useless stuff sucks away precious resources that should be used to move forward in our lives and do the things we want to do.
As I start to pack my belongings I am becoming keenly aware of how much stuff I have. Some of the stuff does make my life more enjoyable: I love my stereo, my Balinese painting, my iPod, my laptop, my bicycle, my books and my bed. Some stuff is really useful: dishes, pots & pans, my toothbrush, clothes and shoes.
Some stuff I really don’t like but because it ‘might be useful someday’ I have continued to carry it around. Like that hideous green and blue shirt I got for a birthday gift from a friend, a shirt that I have worn exactly once in 10 years but refuse to get rid of because it’s still like new.
But how much of that stuff is really necessary? Which items, while not necessities, do, in fact, make my life better?
Stuff extends beyond the physical objects we surround ourselves with. There are other types of stuff in our lives. There are bills, leases, titles, credit cards, contracts and agreements (both express and implied), that we must devote a certain portion of our lives energies to.
When I think of all this stuff in aggregate, I can’t help but remember a picture I saw a long time ago when I was just a child. It was a panel from an illustrated book about Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift.
Gulliver had fallen asleep after landing on the island of Lilliput. The story goes as follows:
I lay down on the Grass, which was very short and soft, where I slept sounder than ever I remember to have done in my Life, and, as I reckoned, above Nine Hours; for when I awakened, it was just Day-light. I attempted to rise, but was not able to stir: For as I happen’d to lye on my Back, I found my Arms and Legs were strongly fastened on each Side to the Ground; and my Hair, which was long and thick, tied down in the same Manner. I likewise felt several slender Ligatures across my Body, from my Armpits to my Thighs.
There lies Gulliver, tied to the ground by thousands of tiny filaments, each no more substantial than a piece of sewing thread. Each filament is insignificant in its own right and could be snapped with a trivial effort, however, when tied with thousands of these little filaments, Gulliver is bound and immobilized; Gulliver has been trapped.
At times, this is how I see out lives. Each thread represents some “stuff” in our lives. Each thread is a rather trivial possession or a small debt (perhaps a credit card we used to buy a new thing), or a lease (on an apartment where we keep our things), or a contract (for work, so we can afford to pay our apartment rent, our credit card bill and have enough left over to buy more things).
Each does not, by itself, bind us into the life we are currently living, but when you add the effects of all of them up, we find that, for all practical purposes we are trapped.
The difference is, that, unlike Gulliver, we are not immobilized. We can, if we choose, start to untangle each one of these threads, bit by bit, piece by piece until we can pull free.
So why don’t more people untangle themselves from the stuff that controls their lives?
I fear that, in our culture, we have become so accustomed to being tied down by our “stuff” that this condition seems so normal that we aren’t even conscious of it. We have a sense that we aren’t as free as we would like to be, but we can’t seem to pinpoint exactly what it is that’s tying us down.
It feels like a big chain around us, so that’s what we look for—and we never see that what binds, isbut a myriad of small things, the “stuff�? in our life.
Once you are aware of the many small strings that ties you down, then you can start to untangle your life and achieve the freedom to live your dreams.
You life is too precious to not be lived to it’s fullest. Get rid of all the uneccessary stuff in your life.
Stuff can be replaced.
Heck–you can even have some fun with it.
Call up somebody that you don’t like and give it all to them–for free.
Not only have you confused the heck out of them, but once they accept your “generosity” they have to deal with all the stuff you gave them.
More Resources.
These articles range from easy tips on how to make your life simpler to radical simplicity—you decide how simple you want to make your life.
The Freedom of Letting Go (a Buddhist perspective on stuff) from SimpleLiving.com
De-Cluttering and Books on Simplicity from Deborah Verhoeven’s Living Simply web site.
Stuff: The Sectret Lives of Everyday Things Wanna see how much other stuff goes into making the stuff that you buy? This is really crazy stuff.
And for a hilarious perspective on the complexities that stuff brings to our lives, listen to George Carlin’s routine A Place For My Stuff
Your are right about stuff, however this is must be expanded to include not just physical stuff but also mental stuff that can be found in the bargains with others that are around us. These bargains are our baggage and form our understanding of the world. We have many little rules of engagement that restrict what we allow ourselves to do. These always revolve around our ultimate question- is it fair? If I work hard at work, and someone else gains (like the boss) then that is not fair- I withdraw my engagement as a punishment to the boss.
And so the cycle is compounded, we with hold ourselves as a protest because the world is un fair
julian wilson said this on November 21st, 2005 at 4:36 am