Less is More

Too often we all want more. I want more, you want more. We think if we had more, then life would be good.

More stuff, more money, more coffee, more time, more, more

So we have supersize, timesaving, credit cards, huge closets/garages and storage bins.

Are we happy?

 

No … because less is more.

Some of us don’t believe that for one second. Others think there is something to it, but change is hard, so we keep gathering more. Some of us think it might be true, but haven’t tried it enough to really believe it. Others know it’s true, but find it hard to make it our lifestyle.

I know it’s true — less really is more — and I want to live that way.

I have lived with the less is more attitude and it was so freeing. In ’03 we sold our business, house and property. We bought a motorhome and packed it with essentials for a year-long roadtrip around the country. The rest of our stuff we stored in my mother-in-law’s extra garage. I did not want to store junk, so as I packed the boxes, I asked myself one question. “Will I be happy to see this when I unpack this box?”

If the answer was not a resounding “Yes!” … I did not pack it. I gave it away or threw it away.

It was a freeing process and when we moved into another house after the trip, it was a joy to only unpack things I wanted.

I thought I would continue with that mentality, but over the past few years, clutter has crept into my life again. Now I’m making a concentrated effort to live with less again. I want my whole life to be less cluttered, but my focus at first will be stuff. Every time I plan to buy something, I will stop and ask … do I really need this? Why? Could I live without it?

How do you feel about less is more? Do you think that is true? And do you live that way?

Subscribe to this blog by clicking on the RSS button beside my picture.