The Minimalist Movement
“She won’t stop getting more and more stuff”
“He doesn’t even have room in his house just to move around anymore…”
“It’s like it doesn’t matter how much money it all costs, she just has to have it all…”
Drowning in stuff… overrun by stacks of things…but more just keeps appearing. He seems almost shameful of his collection, but he adds a little more to it every time you look up. She won’t stop going out shopping, even if she doesn’t have the space left to store it all.
I hate being the bearer of bad news, but I think somebody needs to say it… just like money can’t buy you love, it can’t buy you happiness. And happiness is not something you’ll find tucked between stacks and stacks of material things, anyway. More and more research is actually telling us the opposite: the fewer material things or items you own, the more satisfied many people will report being.
There’s a whole minimalist movement, and they’ve got a pretty sound theory. It is said that everything you own is something you must give your time and energy to keep it. So if you have too much stuff, you have to give it too much of your time, and you won’t have enough time left to enjoy.
But more than that… no matter how many material items you buy to fill your space, you will not fill the emptiness in your heart. Knick knacks on a shelf can’t balance for too many voices in your mind. Purchasing more items will not help with whatever void or hard emotion, and won’t ever stack high enough to prevent you from being able to see whatever the problem is that you are afraid to face.
Advertisers and marketers would absolutely love for you to believe otherwise, of course. If the next video on social media can convince you that one more item for your home will surely be the item to complete you and you will be happy forever after, then they have accomplished their goal… to get you to trade your money for more things.
Who you are and how you treat people will go a lot farther to impress them than whatever you own will. The richest man with all the coolest toys that doesn’t treat people well is often less loved than the poor man who will drop what he’s doing to lend a helping hand.
Whatever you’re missing, you won’t find it mixed in with the things in a shopping cart. You can’t buy happiness in any stores, it will not be in a box on any shelves, and you can’t pay for good quality soul searching. Look deep within yourself… that’s where you’ll find those secrets.
