>Things you own actually begin to own you after some time. You clean them, organize them, buy them, sell them etc. More you own, the more time they rob from you

>Things you own actually begin to own you after some time. You clean them, organize them, buy them, sell them etc. More you own, the more time they rob from your lives. and >You won’t lose that much. These two points go hand in hand -- though, I would change "lose" to "miss" in the second. I grew up rather poor, and with a less than stellar family. As a result, I was bounced around a lot from home to home. One thing I learned from that is that with each move, I unpacked fewer and fewer boxes that were filled with my things. I only needed a few core things in which to be happy. If another move was only few months down the road, I didn't see a point in unpacking all of these useless items if they're just going to go back in the box again. Eventually, I realized that the stuff I didn't unpack was really just that: stuff. I didn't need it to be happy. It was really just one more thing that I had to spend time maintaining. This minimalism, though originally born from necessity, carried over to adulthood as a simple lifestyle choice. I have a massive problem in wrapping my head around people's obsession with filling their homes with.. stuff. In an attempt to explain the minimal lifestyle to my much younger brother the other day, I gave the example of people who shop at Kirklands (we just happened to be walking by the place when my older, and very married, sister exclaimed joy at seeing the store). The stuff in that store is little more than yard sale fodder (in my ever so humble opinion!). It's purpose is to will up a space in your home, but it means nothing to the buyer. In a week's time, it will just be another "thing;" something you bought once on a whim. In five years it will either be thrown away, sold, or in a closet somewhere because you've got to make room for ever more stuff in your house. I've got a very simple question which I ask myself before I purchase something: "Is this item really going to make me happy?" "I cannot imagine a scenario where this fancy silverware holder, which by definition will sit in a drawer, underneath said silverware and thus rarely seen, will really make me happier than this $5 utilitarian one" (actual conversation I had with my girlfriend at Ikea, to which she replied, "but it's cuter!"). That said, I don't not buy things; I'm a sucker for the NASA lego sets, admittedly. But they have meaning to me more than a placeholder. It's an activity I do with my brothers, it is, to me, a symbol of a great human achievement, and I fudging love showing people that there's actually a little lego satellite inside the lego Shuttle. That type of thing is an experience for me. It's not just a thing, looking at it is like a mnemonic for triggering good memories I had of putting it together with family and friends. Those are the things I feel are worth filling your house with, not just stuff because "that wall could use something."