How Much Stuff Do You Need To Feel Happy?
He slowly counted the stack of $100 bills out loud and stopped at every chiliad to confirm the number as he handed me the bills. It was a featherbrained process merely he seemed to detect it useful. I wasn't thinking near the money. I was thinking about the significance of bidding bye to the last of my cars. He stopped counting. I signed the terminal paperwork. Information technology was done. My earthly value had finally transitioned from a mass of tangible things to a listing of mostly-intangibles. That was three years ago.
A finance guru would refer to my transition equally one between fixed and liquid assets. I see the process as a removal of many things that distracted me from the relationships and activities that fabricated me nearly happy. Sound crazy? Let'southward work through information technology a bit and see what happens. Start with 4 questions:
Why practise you have and so much stuff?
When it comes to household belongings, I am not the type of person who enjoys organizing things for the sake of the organizational procedure. I tin can come with a place for things and keep them in their identify until I take more than things than I have places. Once that happens, yous'd exist correct in referring to me every bit a "messy person." I found a solution in reducing the number of things I owned to where I could easily manage them without much effort.
There was no struggle in realizing that if I had less stuff I'd accept an easier time of managing it. The difficult function emerged every bit I worked through the reasons why I wasn't getting rid of all the actress stuff I had. In thinking things through, I came upwardly with some reasons why I kept and so much stuff effectually.
- To avert the discomfort of empty space– But like an empty social calendar is never considered a positive opportunity for increased interaction, the infinite left in your garage after y'all sell your collection of golf game clubs may feel lonely and unused.
- To meet the expectations of a social group – I owned a bunch of furniture even though at that place is but one of me because I felt badly when friends stopped by and didn't accept a place to sit. The bigger firm, the gunkhole, even a special set of dinnerware for special occasions can all fall into the group of things y'all own just because your friends expect y'all to.
- Because procurement is enjoyable– Ownership new stuff is fun. The smaller objects that ataxia up most of our lives are the easiest to stock upwardly on because their price point is depression enough to make purchases excusable. "It's only $20" you say as you bring home all the same another set of beer mugs.
As I learned that the empty infinite I'd and so feared was actually freedom, I started celebrating newfound spaces and gaurding them fiercely. While my previous actions and purchases pointed to the contrary, information technology turned out that my friends weren't actually visiting me simply to sit on my furniture. They wanted to hang out with me and didn't actually care if that meant sitting on a plush burrow or sprawled on a wood flooring. Procurement turned out to be my all-in-one respond to a artistic urge and was hands replaced by helping others make, prepare, and imagine things.
What makes you most happy?
As I figured out why I had and then much stuff and focused more than of my free energy on social interactions, I found myself earthworks deeper into what it was that made me most happy. We are too easily convinced that happiness is a recipe 1 needs riches, fame, and power to create. Such things have their uses but I was unable to tie my personal experiences to any sort of happiness. I somewhen settled on iii notions that seem closest to "happiness ingredients" as I can notice in my own life. I am near often happy when I am able to:
- Exist Useful – I am happier when I tin help others.
- Love – I don't just mean love in the deranged romantic sense that causes i to make poor financial decisions and chance life and limb. I as well mean the sort of abiding involvement in ideas and pursuits that keeps one up and night and makes information technology worth leaping out of bed in the morning.
- Recognize and Share Beauty – There is beauty in kindness. In that location is beauty in the unexpected smile of a stranger. There is beauty in the bloom growing on the rubble of a war-torn district. Existence able to recognize that beauty and share it with others ever makes me happier.
Notice that none of those things direct involves tangible things. Money and high-tech gadgets might be extremely helpful in my pursuit of usefulness or sharing. But in that location's no directly necessity for most of the stuff I had kicking around my house but a few years agone.
What holding allow y'all to pursue that happiness?
Figuring out what I truly needed in order to pursue happiness was much easier in one case I figured out the things that made me happiest. Every bit I went through my belongings I asked myself a few questions that made elementary work of deciding what to keep and what to push away.
- When did yous final apply this?
- Can you find another 1 of these hands?
- Could somebody you know use this more than yous?
- Would whatsoever of your relationships suffer if y'all got rid of this?
- Would yous run back into a burning building to rescue this?
I enlisted the assistance of a trusted and mildly sarcastic friend to help me in my stuff-busting adventure. Just like shopping with somebody else's money is fun, getting rid of another person'south stuff seems like a good fourth dimension, too. At least she seemed to bask it! It was very helpful to have a friend nearby to cut through the fog of the inexplicable emotional attachments I had to some belongings. She also helped scan in a lot of the necessary only bulky paperwork I'd been towing around for years. Now that I had an thought of what fabricated me happy information technology was easy to get rid of extra stuff. It had all gone from existence a part of my life to just being stuff I lived near. I felt gratuitous.
What will you practice with the residual?
If you don't accept friends willing to snap up your extra property, you might consider one of the post-obit options:
- Craigslist – Sell or give your stuff away to willing locals.
- eBay – Sell your stuff.
- Freecycle – Give your stuff away.
- K Sale – Sell, Requite, raffle. Up to yous!
If you know of some other website or take an thought I should add to the list of ways to become rid of extra stuff, drib me a note in a comment and I'll update with it!
How much stuff do you need to experience happy?
Image: Visual Panic
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Source: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/how-much-stuff-do-you-need-to-feel-happy.html
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