Break one cookie into two pieces for a 3-year old, and you’ll be surprised how they react. It’s magical for them, as they see one treat transform into two. More is always more for them—their pleasure has been doubled!
Children around this age are unable to understand conservation. As kids get older, they begin to develop the capacity to understand that taller glasses of water don’t necessarily mean more volume than wider cups. And you can’t cheap out and multiply how many cookies they’re getting by breaking them up, either.
It’s an interesting study in human psychology.
As adults, we can smile at these tricks of the mind. We have learned to reason and critically evaluate much of the world around us. And we’re certainly too smart to fall for these sorts of mind games, aren’t we?
Not so fast.
Despite our experiences and understanding of the world, we still remain fallible to manipulations of perception—but this time, on grander scales.
For example, research has found that we tend to fill our plates no matter how large they are. The bigger the plate, the more the food we add to it. When plates are larger, we tend to underestimate the amount of food present. This, of course, can lead to overeating and weight gain.
When space is available we look to fill it.
This phenomenon is also obvious in our ever-expanding houses. Today’s residences are 61% larger than only 40 years ago. Despite a significant recession in 2008, median home sizes continue to steadily increase.
Many have grabbed the largest home their pre-approved loan will allow and subsequently filled them to the brim with stuff. As a result, the average household now has 300,000 items.
Never before have humans burdened themselves with so much space and so much stuff.
If we are ever going to break this growing trend, we need to get intentional. We ought to think hard about the amount of square footage we decide to own. And we ought to work hard to overcome the tendency to fill all our empty spaces with more and more physical possessions.
Here are three lessons to prevent you from continuing to amass more:
1. Re-examine your values.
If you were to say, “I want to downsize my house” or “I should declutter the garage,” those would be great goals. But they’re not values. Instead, values transcend time and objectives. Values, often times, form the basis for minimalism in our life. But more than that, they inform our specific practice of it.
What do you believe? What’s important to you? What guides your purpose in life or your philosophy of minimalism? And how do you want to be remembered? These are the powerful questions we must face and ask ourselves as minimalists. Who am I, what’s important to me, and does my life’s energy reflect that?
2. Start smaller.
When I embraced minimalism, I tirelessly decluttered our 2,200 square foot home in Vermont. Like most families in America, we had spent years filling every room, every closet, and every empty space. There were countless nooks to sift through, and it took months to pare down our belongings. But eventually, the space felt more open and more empty. We began to envision a life lived in a smaller home.
When we moved to Arizona, we chose a 1,600 square foot home. In so doing, we now save far more money, time, and energy than ever before. We took a risk and never looked back. But we didn’t start with the move first, we started much smaller—decluttering drawers and closets and rooms. Eventually, as we did, we began to discover we needed far less space than we imagined. And when we moved into a smaller home, we felt much less temptation to fill it with things we didn’t need.
3. Recognize fallibility.
Even the best of us get caught up in the drive to amass more space and more stuff. Just look out at the world and you’re apt to see flashy cars and McMansions almost everywhere. It’s human to be fallible, to make mistakes, or get caught up in this rat race of collection. Despite our values, we sometimes purchase and fill when we ought to lean on what’s most important to us.
When this happens, it is important not to punish or demean ourselves, but to return to step one: examine your values. What have you learned about yourself and how can you return to these values? Remember, you cannot change the past, but you can always learn from it.
We will always struggle to accurately judge the amount of stuff we carry throughout our lifespan. Whether it’s a broken cookie or an ever-expanding home full of stuff, our perspectives can be manipulated by the world around us. Society influences us and space affects us.
However, by revisiting our values, starting with small steps, recognizing fallibility, and learning from our past mistakes, we can overcome and counteract many of these tendencies. We should know better by now anyway.
Annie says
People often question my husband and I as to why we still live in our small apartment and haven’t moved to a bigger house and also why we seem to have/want so little stuff. For us it’s simple, we have enough space/stuff to live the way we want and more space/stuff would just be more to clean. I love a clean house but hate giving up a lot of my time to cleaning. We can clean our whole apartment thoroughly in a few hours and we can easily do quick spruce-ups as needed in less than 20 minutes if company is coming.
It also keeps us from buying a lot of extra stuff as we really don’t have a place to store it without the apartment looking/feeling cluttered. One of my pet peeves is having to move a lot of stuff to get to what I need in a closet or drawer, after clearing out a bunch of clutter years ago we rarely have to do that. When I do comes across a situation like that it now triggers me to re-evaluate what’s stored there.
Jewel says
Just want to thank you for your inspiring emails! I always read yours right away when I see it pop in my email. I am on the journey and they give me a nice boost. I did a good run through of the house at the beginning of the year and many trips to Goodwill. Really felt good! Over Memorial Day weekend we had to replace a ceiling in a bedroom and had to move everything out of the room. Since I do not have an extra room to put it all in, the furniture and belonging are all over the house. Although I am grateful I purged, clearly there is plenty of more work to do. Great opportunity to go further when putting everything back when the room is finished. There is such peace in open space. I have to laugh at myself because I am eyeballing everything. Thank you for your inspiration. I know by the end of the year I will be in such a better place, less stress and open time for the things that really matter.
Lindsey says
My fiancé & I have been embracing Minimalism in our move from renting a shared 2000+ sq.ft. house to a 740 sq.ft. one-bedroom apartment next month. It’s been such a great process for both of us, though definitely difficult at times! I wrote a blog post recently about how we’ve gone about getting rid of a ton of our stuff.
Christina says
We are a family of 4 living in a 1400 sq. ft. Home. With young kids and only 1 and 1/2 bath I used to feel that we needed a larger home because as the kids get older their interests grow, that need equipment, art supplies, sports etc. However since I’ve started this minimalist journey, I see that this home will do just fine. We live in the Bay Area where living on one income is not always an option but we’ve made intentional changes to align with our values. I’ve even left my job to be more available to my family and it’s been wonderful. The decluttering piece is still a work in progress but I am filled with gratitude everyday and am enjoying getting rid of things and making life more simple. Thanks Joshua, for these reminders that really we always do have enough irrespective of how much stuff or money we have. Your articles are always inspirational.
David Y says
I’m in the process of downsizing.
Sold my house(not huge, but more than I needed). Now I am renting while looking for a small condo. Have gotten rid of quite a bit so far. Don’t miss any of it. I know some more will probably need to go, but waiting to see what works best in the new home.
Simple + Free says
Out of all your articles this one not only resonated with me the most People often walk into our open/minimal home and wonder why it’s so “empty.” It’s all about values and our home spaces are one of the first places to start showing our kids we value them more than we value spending time organizing/cleaning/maintaining the stuff we’ve accumulated around them.
ProGMO says
I agree about empty space, it’s lovely to look at and very calming. The next step is raising your kids as communists so they understand how capitalism is anathema to a minimalist lifestyle. You can be a cappie or minimalist, but you can’t be both.
TINA says
I remember back in 2000 when we first bought our house, it was my husband & I and 1 cocker spaniel, with dreams of starting a family, that’s why we bought the 2000sq ft house. We sat on the floor in our completely empty house, & I said , “we will never have enough stuff to put in this house” (we were coming from a 1 bedroom small apt). Back then we actually used our 2 car garage to park our 2 cars. Fast forward 17yrs, it’s still just my husband & me & 2 dogs, and it seems we have not one empty space in the house for anything. And our 2 car garage is now filled with, everything but cars. My husband gets frustrated that we still have credit card debt, though we haven’t charged on any credit card in several years, (except for AmExp, that we PIF ever mth), it doesn’t understand where those chgs came from, my answer is always the same. “Look around, everything you see in this house, cost money, we only had enough stuff to fill 2-3 rooms in this house when we first moved, now, we have no space, that’s where our credit card debt came from, not to mention, we’ve replace every appliance at least 1x, some 2x, the roof has replaced, we replaced the central A/C 2x” I have started to declutter junk, wasn’t junk when we bought it, but it’s just stuff we dont need & really don’t use and or love. I’ve embraced the minimalist idea & working it everyday, it’s a slow drip, but progress still the same. Not only am I declutter’g in the house, but also concentrating more on getting out of debt faster. We are reaching retiring age & with no kids to burden with getting rid of our stuff. I’m hoping to get to the point, that when the time comes (years from now, God willing), the realtor can sell the house & all its furniture/contents & give a young couple a good start without all the excess stuff.
Emily says
When we first moved into this house (bigger than the last one, with our third child due just after the move) it felt huge.
Now we have four children, two of them teens, and I have to remind myself that this house is big enough and will start to empty soon. Kids will start to move out over the next 5-10 years and 1200 square feet is plenty.
300 000 objects, though, I can believe. I think in this household at least 200 000 of those are Lego!! :)
carol says
We downsized to a smaller home but still 2000 sq ft because we could not find a home that was smaller and functional. I love small spaces and loved the process of getting rid of a lot of stuff. It was a harder process for my hubby but he doesn’t miss anything that we didn’t move with us. We now have the one in – one out rule and am still working on our adult children not to buy us stuff but experiences :-)
Cat says
It’s a continual journey. But I’m glad articles like his remind us peristence + intent will eventually become habit. Simplicity allows for even more… of everything.