The Luxury of Enough
I wrote my first blog, called “The Luxury of Enough,” way back in 2011. Back then, we were post-2008 housing crash, and the once “must have” McMansions had become our white elephants. Self-storage units and pod use exploded, and our homes, garages, basements, and attics were bursting at the seams with all the things we just had to have. Soon we realized that the accumulation was choking us out, and maintaining, insuring, servicing, and cleaning our “stuff” was sucking our valuable life energy.
I’m sorry to say that not much has changed in all those years. In fact, accumulating and acquiring stuff is even easier with the advent of online shopping and the ability to have packages appear on our doorsteps in a blink. We’ve heightened the throwaway mentality due to easily accessible, cheap merchandise and a lack of interest in quality craftsmanship. And, like the vulture waiting for a fresh kill, the self-storage buildings (on just about every corner) are waiting to slurp up our excesses and charge us for the privilege of having more than we really need.
Reflecting on a Life of Excess
I have recently experienced the luxury of enough in my own life. For the past 22 years, I lived in a 5400 square foot house, beautifully furnished with spaces for delicious naps in your choice of locals, a room to house just my dishes, multiple refrigerators and washers and dryers and dishwashers, and a dressing room that was the highlight of every house tour. I had closets full of beautiful linens, stacks of antique porcelain dishes, silver glasses for every type of drink one could serve, and an appliance for every culinary whim. It all seemed so necessary at the time to acquire beautiful things.
I really thought that these things enhanced my quality of life until one day, it all seemed so sickeningly overwhelming, and I questioned the value of having so much stuff. Was it enriching my life or draining it?
For the past several months, I have been living with a friend. Initially, I took just enough for a week or so, but as the weeks turned into months, I found myself bringing more and more things. I soon realized that I was filling the space available to me simply because it was vacant. In my new home, I had 5 dresser drawers, one 5’ closet, and 1 1/2 drawers in a bathroom vanity, and I realized very quickly how little I actually needed to be comfortable. Meanwhile, miles away, I still had a dressing room full of clothes, vanity drawers full of toiletries, drawers full of jewelry, and rooms full of art, furniture, and objet d’art. Why did I ever think I needed that much stuff to begin with? It turns out that Frankie and I sleep on less than 18” of our king-sized bed. I wear only about 10% of my clothes, never change my jewelry, and don’t use half of the lotions and potions in those vanity drawers.
Becoming a Free Spirit
My fantasy has always been to sell all of my possessions, fit my life into two suitcases, and travel the world, living with no sense of being permanently tethered to just one place. I realize that galavanting as a free spirit is not for everyone, but I have worked with many people over the years who have felt weighed down by having too much stuff, and I realized I had become one of them. I saw how few of the things I had that I really wanted, so when my house sold and it was time to empty it, I made the decision to get rid of everything I owned except my clothes, a few paintings, and those suitcases. The very second I made that decision, I felt a weight lift, and I knew I had just opened myself up to the options and possibilities that come when one isn’t tied to material possessions that need a place to reside. I am free!
For many, the thought of freedom from having “stuff” is scary and incomprehensible.
But think about your routine from the time you awake until the time you go to sleep. How much of your stuff do you really interact with? I think you’ll see that it is very little. And once you have the courage to pare down to what you really need, you will see that the luxury is in having enough, not having too much.
And that exercise of paring down and eliminating that which no longer serves you easily extends to other areas of life. I have often said that we use the same skill set to clean out a junk drawer as we do to clean out the toxic people or situations in our lives. It feels just as good to lose 10 pounds of clutter as 10 pounds of fat, to walk away from a broken relationship as a broken appliance. The more we free ourselves from being tied down with stuff or situations we no longer want, the more space seems to magically appear in our lives. That space can be filled with things that don’t take up any room, like travel, having new adventures and encountering new people and experiences, or perhaps just making time to listen to the sound of the sea sitting next to someone you love.
Mindfulness in the Holiday Season
As we head toward the holidays and our traditions of acquiring more “stuff,” maybe we can start bringing mindfulness to what surrounds us. Do we truly need more? Does having less scare us in some way? Why? Wouldn’t asking questions like these make us look at the ways we contribute to our own sense of being overwhelmed, weighed down, and feeling stuck?
Perhaps this holiday season, we will grant ourselves the "luxury” of having less of what we don’t want or need in our lives and feel the peace that comes with knowing we truly have and are enough.
Happy holidays!
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