It is not popular to say this, and people will want to disagree, but one of the reasons that successful people are successful is because they have less stuff.
It used to be – in the Stone Age – that you measured your wealth in possessions and the more stuff you had (i.e. the more material for survival) more successful you were likely to be. In those days, stuff was synonymous with success. If you had a big storehouse filled with corn, that made you a big man on campus. In those days there was a logic behind holding on to possessions and things for years to come. Not anymore.
We now live in a fast paced, complicated age – an Information Age – in which stuff has become so irrelevant that it is now more of a problem than a boon...
In the old days – the Stone Age – you would go over to your neighbor’s cave and he or she would proudly show you around, making sure that you noticed all of the stuff that they had: the new bearskin rug, the five new clubs, the bone tipped spear, you would be envious and then never invite them over to your house because you had no stuff to show them.
Now however, most of the people I visit are embarrassed to have people over because they have too much stuff. Call it clutter or lack of organization or what you will, but the basic fact remains that almost every one of us is battling a completely opposite problem than before, keeping too much stuff out of our lives.
Now, when we work hard and aim for success, it shouldn't be to accumulate more and more stuff; it should be for something higher: quality of life.
Most people, however, are still caught up in the past even though they say they are not unconsciously tied to their material stockpiling . Most people are still holding on to stuff as if it were a sign of wealth. This is also often holding them back from being successful.
From having visited many, many people at home in the past five years, I can tell you that those that have been the most successful have had the least stuff around them and the most desire to get rid of even more. This editing is not a matter of money. It is a matter of intelligence, lightness of spirit and clear focus.
In our day and age the virtues of brute force and stockpiling have been replaced. The challenge now is to replace quantity with quality and protect our apartments from the world of stuff that lurks outside our doors.
(Re-edited from 2004-11-16 - MGR)
YUM. Who's the cute caveman? He can clutter my space anytime. Tell him to bring his club.
P-- you beat me to it!!
When we moved from our 3 bedroom, 2400 sq ft place in Massachusetts, to our first apartment in Park Slope, I had the mother of all tag sales. I sold the guest room furniture, the kitchen table and 4 chairs, a washer and dryer and... well you get the point. We scaled WAY back. And when it was all over, it felt incredibly freeing. We lived in 5 states in 10 years, due to my husband's job, and I was tired of lugging that stuff around with me. Now I wait and purchase one great piece, instead of worrying about filling up the place. Less is definitely more!
There's also something to be said for the feeling of being able to and enjoying saying no when we are presented with things we want. I am a bit uprooted now, but a couple months ago when I was more settled it felt so good to see something, be inspired by it, not buy it, and instead be reminded of all the great things I had waiting for me at home that I hadn't adequately appreciated. Somehow the things we see and love and want can inspire us to go back and remember what had inspired us about the things we already have.
I just lost EVERYTHING I own to a bed bug infestation in my old apartment. My roommate freaked when she had to leave her stuff, but I found it exhilarating. Now I'm in my new apartment and, although I've bought furniture, I have little else in there and my friends can hear an echo when I'm on the phone with them.
I am not strict about keeping to a color scheme or decorating theme. However, I sometimes find that objects that looked so appealing on the shelf may not have that same hold on my attention when placed next to my other belongs. The reverse is also true. Some objects will become more attractive because they "interact" well with my other belongings. Every couple of months, I will weed those possessions which don't work in the context of my apartment.
I have to confess, though, that I usually give these objects to my mom or sister, who are pack rats. So my former possessions are still in the family. I'll be visiting them this x-mas.
Hm. I, personally, am not a hoarder and instinctively agree with you. Your argument also makes sense, logically. The less stuff you have to worry about picking up, taking care of, the more time you have to spend on becoming a "success" (however that be defined.)
I don't think your theory always applies, though. I've met many, many successful people—both professionally and personally successful—who are hoarders, collectors, and cataloguers. Their places are packed to the rafters with inspiration. However, they all share the trait of being organized to a fault in their obsessions, and I think that's what separates the successful hoarder-people, from unsuccessful hoarder-people.
When has organizing our space become synonymous with giving order to our lives? Is this development due to the way American culture has embraced Eastern philosophies like feng shui, where there seems to be a strong association between clear, uncluttered spaces and a clarity of thought and motivation. Or is this just part of that decades-long trend in American culture for absolute control--control over our bodies (a sculpted body vs an average body), our time (planners with every hour accounted for), and now our spaces?
In this freedom from our possessions, we seem to have forgotten to ask ourselves, how do we define success? I don't claim to know the answer, but it is interesting that a minimalist space now allows us to come up with a very specific answer to this question--an answer that seems a little too narrow for me.
rightonpal!
and then there is fat folks who pack on pounds for the same reasons.
love thy self.
sewing poverty like a garden herb.
less IS more
thanks for the site, emalikingit
I feel heavy! I went to the salon and had my first haircut in 12 years. I started dieting and working out but I still felt extremly heavy. I realized that all the clutter of material ojects I never used or even looked at was placing an enormous amount of weight on me. I had reached the ultimate desperation of not understanding why I had to have all these things. Why did I have to buy this and buy that. I have fallen into the trap of being convienced that I needed a hair twirler even though I have curly hair. So just recently I took a box a trash bags and stuffed bags filled of stuff that just weigh me down. And I'm still not finished. I wanted some inspiration and began reseraching the light and beautiful word "Minimalist" and found this site. I do feel that I'm headed in the right direction and I am more conscious of the burden of too much stuff.
Did Maxwell get P2's permission before posting his likeness on the site?
Great post and perfect timing for us, as my husband and I just had a tag sale over the weekend.
I agree, keeping too much stuff certainly does create added stress and, at least for my husband and I, can inhibit personal and/or professional growth. We started to whittle down our possessions in April 2005 and had two tag sales last summer. During the winter/sping of this year, we decided to whittle down even more. It's like losing extra weight and then, toning your body. It makes you feel and move better. The mind gets clearer.
I had amassed so many things, either hand-me-downs from clients, inherited pieces, items that I purchased for clients that didn't make the final cut, etc. We threw a huge "home decor" tag sale this past Saturday. We met so many great people from all over (as far as Arizona!) and the weather was perfect. In addition to earning cash, my home feels fresh and clutter-free. A weight was lifted. I got a nice tan and plenty of exercise, too. :)
Holly
Recently, I bought pantry items so I didn't have to keep going back to the store or mess up recipes because I was skimping on ingredients. And I bought a large set of Oneida flatware and threw out my old (like 3-4 generations) flatware. I feel that I should guilt at my consumerism but I DO NOT. I also have five pairs of the same pair of house pants and six of the same kind of house shirts. (I'm not trying to look terrible but I'm out of shape at the moment and I don't want to spend too much on fat clothes.) I also have two pairs of the same discount slippers ($11) that I wear one and machine wash the other - this is a throwback to my grade school days when I was so indulgent as to own TWO school uniform sets. I feel that this has simplified my life. I also bought two different colors of armani flats ($29 each), two different colors of armani slingbacks ($49) and three pairs of Bruno Magli Mary Janes (okay even after third markdown late August sale - $100 each) from way back in the day and I haven't been tempted to buy shoes since. I splurged on shoe trees so that's why it's been more than a decade and I still have them. But mainly I go barefoot and howl at the moon a la Boo Radley.
As someone who works on nineteenth century history, I have to be honest that this advice makes me cringe--and fear for the next generations of historians. Most of the joys of my career are owed to people who, for whatever reason, clung to the detritus of their lives, or packed it away somewhere to be discovered later. It's simply impossible for us to know what will be of value in the centuries to come. I'm not arguing that everyone should be drowning in collected things, but to live in carefully edited, scrupulously organized rooms is to surrender a wonderful sponteneity and possibility--for us and those who come after us. As much as I would love to live in a perfectly clean and uncluttered house, I wouldn't want to leave one to my grandchildren. It was my grandmother's trunks and piles of random centuries of memorabilia, after all, that inspired me to study history.
Couldn't we focus instead on buying less, or reworking things we already have? That's the sort of advice I find most inspiring on this site. I thought home was the one place in the world you didn't have to worry about being a "success."
The only thing I'm a pack rat about is books and if thats wrong then I don't want to be right.
PS: I can't believe someone thinks that cave man is good looking.
For those not engaged exclusively in the information economy, tools are not only a means to more efficient work, but also to a greater range of work. And tool users always collect tools - from cooks to carpenters.
What I want to know is, how do you free yourself from spare pets or plants - I know I can't.
oh, but in case, it wasn't obvious, I agree with you. If there was a fire, the only thing we would miss are our South Park tapes because it took so long to compile them (ya, I KNOW itunes and dvds exist but popping in an 8 hour tape and just zoning out is its own kind of special fun.)
Gail, I lived with reworked stuff and our stuff is mostly old stuff and you know, some things have to be replaced. Like the old flatware and the old bed sheets. We have old furniture that you have to lift up and adjust to open the drawers on their wood rails, our kitchen is old too. Because nothing that has not completely broken down doesn't get replaced, our life's tiny discomforts are thrown into high definition relief when every few years we stay at a good hotel with up to date furniture and bathrooms. Sometimes, you have to get a new fridge (I still have one from 1968 - god knows how much electricity that thing is using.)
It doesn't matter if we don't have an American Doll collection like the ones lost in Hurrican Katrina. Vulcans can just look at our archives of QVC and HSN programs to see what happened to us. But I don't think they'll be looking at us archeologically to see how we sliced cheese differently from one era to the next or cleaned our greens but how our brains inexorably turned to mush so gently and slowly that we never fought back.
Quality over quantity is of course a rule by which to live, but this assertion that success and minimalism are synonamous is completely rediculous.
I just love when annecdotal "evidence" slowly amasses to result in overarching generalizations.
How about deleting this stupid post and starting over with one that addresses the use and function of stuff as a signifier of success rather than the sophmoric declaration that quantity in itself is a halmark of failure.
By that measure and the assumption that intelligence, lighness and spirit of focus is readily achieveable by anyone who is wealthy enough to purchase the "right" assemblage of material goods and dump them in the "right" new condo development.
Natalie - I agree with you on that point for sure, I know many hoarders who are surgeons, scientists, etc. Some of these people are family members! If you are in Boston, and visit some of the professors that live here in Cambridge, they have homes that are packed with walls of books, collections, etc.
Just today on my blog we did a home tour of a space in San Francisco showing a space that, although not messy, certainly isn't clutter-free. It's lovely, has loads of personality, and a lot of items carefully arranged all over the place. The apartment dweller is both happy and successful.
Pedro raised a great question - how does one measure wealth - a question that my husband and I discuss from time to time because it's a subject that fascinates us. We don't run the same race as some of our friends and family members - many of them tend to measure success either by popularity, number of classes their children are enrolled in size of space, possessions, number of BMWs, or how many Manolo's are sitting in their closet. Last I checked, it wasn't reasonable for me to purchase a pair of $800 heels just because it's trendy and Sara Jessica Parker did it (on a writers income - that was the best part).
Holly
I agree on not being burdened by stuff that just sits in closets sulking, or that hangs around the living room demanding dusting without giving much reward for the privilege.
On the other hand, if I want to be a "success" in the dollhouse world, this requires tools and materials. Were I more interested in being a success in academe, I'd need a lot more books. (No, the requisite academic books cannot be borrowed from the library. That's why I already own so many.)
Are we defining "success" here solely as having a high-powered, high-profile, high-pay job in finance, the tidier levels of business, online pursuits that don't require abtruse research, or various forms of arts administration?
>t is not popular to say this, and people will want to disagree, but one of the reasons that successful people are successful is because they have less stuff.
Ridiculous. Really. I don't care about "popularity"--it's simply WRONG. I'm generally a tosser rather than a hoarder, but please... Success comes with many personality types. People driven to success by wanting others to think well of them will probably be much more focused on making their home look good to others. OTOH, people driven by internal motivation wouldn't give a rat's arse and do what makes THEM feel good. Which, for many people, is hoarding.
BTW, I'm happy because I've discovered my new home has hardwood under the carpets, WHOOP! I didn't believe it would--it was built in the 60s, not the 50s or before, but it does!!!
Lots of people keep stuff due to fear. Fear that when the whazzit breaks again, like it did twelve years ago, they'll need the specialized tool they bought then to replace it. Fear they'll want to read that lovely novel again in eight years because they'll want to be inspired in the same way, and they might not quite remember it.
People who seem very successful in various ways are good at facing fears, moving forward despite them, so the stuff they choose to keep describes their success in living life to its fullest, and their ability to keep moving forward, discarding the unneeded along the way. For the history angle - what more truly describes my life: a house full of things clearly honed to particular loves/tastes/abilities/achievements, or a mish-mosh of handmedowns/unfocused attempts/popular fads?
I hate to quibble or seem pedantic (but hey, when has that ever stopped anyone on the internet before?)...
I disagree (slightly) with the premise: "It used to be – in the Stone Age – that... the more stuff you had (i.e. the more material for survival) [the] more successful you were likely to be."
In nomadic cultures, where people have to pack up and move regularly (whether to follow herds or to find new arable land), it's quite common to have few worldly possessions. So, aside from that notable exception, I agree with the idea that more stuff was historically associated with increased survivability.
there's a bit of correlation/causation problem here, not to mention that it conflicts with the recent econ papers on conspicuous consumption increasing as wealth increases. but perhaps i'm wrong to read this literally rather than as enthusiastic hyperbole. but it is the sort of statement i can imagine issuing from a subsistence farmer in a new yorker cartoon.
Honestly, the arguments for and against keeping lots of stuff both make sense to me. But alas, it's the argument "for" that's won out in my life! The one thing I quibble with is the idea that the purpose of accumulation is to impress people or demonstrate one's wealth. The only real "wealth" my stuff demonstrates (well, aside from the Roseville pottery) is the multitude of my interests and what I see as the resonant layers of my life as it has been lived over the past several decades. But it HAS gotten out of hand lately, to the point where the inability to manage and/or weed out my stuff is limiting the degree to which I can welcome people (including the new friends I am making) into my home ... and cleaning and organizing is taking up an inordinate amount of time that could be better spent on people-centered activities that would probably make me feel less isolated after the loss of my boyfriend about a year ago. This is a timely post, as I have just noted a new hoarding therapy group starting in my neighborhood soon and have contacted the person who will be running it!
Perhaps the reason Maxwell has come to think that successful people are successful because they have less stuff is that the nature of his work means that he constantly interacts with unsuccessful people who unsuccessfully have lots of stuff.
It may be freeing, or helpful, or calming to declutter, but I'm not sure you can make the causal leap. I love this site, and I like Maxwell's point of view. I also think that pouring money into things, into stockpiling and accumulating and having the newest, shiniest cell phone or tv or dining room table probably isn't life-affirming or rewarding in the long run. I just think that that first sentence takes away from the intelligence of the rest of the post.
an eames red molded plywood mid-century modern chair and a nice flatweave rug from ABC Carpets is ALL you need to make the room, i always say.
less IS more! in fact... LESS is the new black !
My dad believed that anything worth having was worth having in multiples. If he liked something, having two was even better, and three made a collection. Whether it was eagles and ship models – or, when he was a kid, china dogs and stamps – my dad knew there was something magical that happened when enough of the things you treasured were gathered together so that their qualities could be admired in all their subtle variations.
And the rule of multiples didn’t apply just to valuable things. Dad took the Coast Guard motto "Semper Paratus" literally. He had enough stuff stashed away to supply anyone with anything at any time – and he could always find it, as long as my mother didn’t move something. There wasn’t anything that broke, squeaked, came undone, or wore out that my father couldn’t fix with a trip to the basement or his workshop. And if I needed a little box for something or a screen to cover the drainage hole in a flower pot, dad always had one. He took enormous pleasure in coming up with just what worked, and also in reassuring you there was another one if you needed it.
Where other people saw magazines and old papers, dad saw resource material, threads of interest to follow, projects to initiate when he had time. His wide-ranging mind caught obscure references to things someone he just happened to know was involved in. He spotted errors in books and articles that he had the documentation to substantiate. Programs from conventions he had attended long ago, price lists for things that were no longer manufactured – there wasn’t anything that might not turn out to provide just the information he or someone else was looking for. The things dad collected were vehicles to share his enthusiasms with other people – shop owners he carried on lengthy conversations with, colleagues who recalled the same experiences, younger guys who were awed by the history and significance of the objects my father had had the foresight to accumulate – often at a time when they were being rendered obsolete and no one else was concerned with their preservation.
Is all this genetically transmitted? You bet!
Junie Moon: Making the room is one thing ... making a life is something else entirely!
Jane, in many an historical research project, I have been profoundly grateful for people like your father who saved *all* the convention programs. I don't necessarily want to take on that job myself -- but there is no way to write accurate local or institutional history without those kinds of documents. And they're rarely saved in any official way.
But Juniemoon, what does one *do* in the room with a single Eames chair and a flat-weave carpet? There's nowhere for guests to sit... nowhere to set a plate or a computer... nowhere to set a book... It seems all one can do is sit in the chair and work on one's laptop computer. I've spent many a day doing writing or editing or stock analysis in roughly that mode -- and been grateful for a coffee table to set my cup of tea and a second chair to change my view.
That applies to food too. I see people at the supermarket hoarding wagons ! on a weekend and I see the same people everyweek with a wagon!.
The moment I started picking up produce at the farmers market and stuck to buying the essentials at the supermarket I started eating sensibly though I must admit that I would break the rule once in a while but I promised myself that I would stick to buying the essentials that I can only carry that would be comfortable to walk home. I have stuck to the principle and it worked. I have lost enough weight, started exercising - one of my best was walking from greenwich street to the 100 street and back.
I felt like a winner.
But I must say that I cannot give away my books. I love to read and learn and share. I visit libraries but the books are everywhere in my home, that makes me feel very secure and comfortable.
Pierre, I completely agree. Nothing makes home feel like home for me quite as much as my books. They're really the only thing I collect, and the only "stuff" that survived my recent "moving to a much smaller studio have to get rid of EVERYTHING" purge.
I've recently started going through closets and cabinets and throwing out everything I no longer have a use for. I've always been kind of a pack rat, but lately I've started thinking of it in terms of real estate. If the space it occupies is worth more than it means to me then out it goes. My biggest problem has always been that I have a basement. It's far too easy to pack stuff away down there instead of throwing it out. I took one look around down there the other day and nearly everything I saw should have been thrown away long ago. Some things will get priced and packed away again for a future tag sale, but most of it will be thrown out. That space is far too valuable to be stacked with junk.
I still have a long way to go, but in the past two weeks alone, I've thrown bags & bags of trash that use to clutter my space. I even made two trips to my local library branch with one of those large carts with close to 300 books.
Here, Here!!
Has it occured to you that the problem of "managing stuff" is confined to a well appointed segment of the population? Granted these are your readers and book buyers, which might explain your myopia.
i don't think the amount of stuff you have has any bearing on your 'success', in the traditional worldly sense. though i would wonder whether people who are already more successful (esp. financially) might find it easier to live with less. it's hard to have one really nice pair of shoes that last 10 years when all you can ever afford is yet another shitty $20 pair. while shopping daily at a greenmarket is wonderful, it's out of the reach of less well-off people for a variety of reasons.
all in all, though, i don't strive to consume less because it might make me "successful". i do it because it makes more sense in my life as it is now.
Okay, I'm cranky, so I probably shouldn't be posting, but what the heck. This is hogwash. I agree that one can focus on important things when nonimportant things are put by the wayside. However, the implication that somehow successful people want less stuff is misguided. If anything, I have found there has been a continual emphasis on having more and more stuff--especially the *right* stuff (which this site is guilty of) with time and increases in income. Hence the reason no one in America saves $$. There's a reason big houses and big cars and whatever else out there that's big and bad sells so well--keeping up with the Joneses is alive and well. And, if people forego this, it becomes a point of snobbery...and often (in my experience) I've found it's just that these people living in minimalist spaces have more expensive stuff and have more space, where they can then stash their stuff away in sleek cubbies. I'll stop my tantrum now.
holly, i love your site. you can get manolos for less then $500 and yes they are worth it.
"It is not popular to say this, and people will want to disagree, but one of the reasons that successful people are successful is because they have less stuff."
It's not that this statement is unpopular or contentious, it is just kind of dumb. There are some many generalizations, assumptions, and prejudices packed into it that it is meaningless aside from what it reveals of its author.
I realize this post was written for a particular audience. But there are still many people in this world today (not the stone age) who still struggle to obtain bare necessities for survival and proper functioning within society.
I think a more important question than "how much stuff do you have" is "why do you have the stuff you have?"
To me that is a much more important marker of likely "success" in life. Do you have certain fancy or name brand items because you feel pressured to? Do you continually buy more and more because you are filling some hole in your life? Do you go for the super contemporary-minimalist-slick look because it is fashionable?
Or is each item in your home (no matter if a few or many) there because you truly love it, or it serves a necessary purpose?
Jane, I loved your post.
I stored all of my belongings (mostly papers) during the years that I was living in Africa. Now that I have moved back, I have been re-connecting with my papers, and with people. I can't describe the joy I have felt recently when I presented my 7th grade history teacher with three maps I had made in her history class, which I have kept all these years. Or bringing my 7th grade science notebook with me when I met up with my 7th grade science teacher in July. They were so moved that I had kept these items all of these years. Another favorite of mine is the "AschaÂ’s Outfit" series, where, in 9th grade, I documented what Ascha Drake (see The Gallery 11 OCT 05 http://tinyurl.com/hzmfv) was wearing every day to school on the back side of my math class notes.
Each day during math class I drew everything she was wearing, from earrings to shoes. I canÂ’t wait to share that green notebook with her husband!
I wouldn't want to part with such precious items.
What a delightfully loaded little essay to unpack and mull over... I have to agree that there is some faulty causality between success and lack-of-possesion here. Success in my mind is far too abstract and personal to be squeezed into any one-dimensional correlation. That being said, it is a great pleasure to liberating oneself from unneeded possessions.
The threshold of what is needed and what is not is probably one of the most interesting/enlightening aspects to talk about. Does need come from utility? Does utility include emotional concerns? Wende makes a good point about the relativity of success. There are many many worlds you could rank yourself or others in. Apartment Therapy just happens to have a pretty specific milieu based on certain "design lifestyle" oriented narratives.
It is only within the last 150 years or so that this topic could even become a potential debate. I think people of today would be surprised just how little most people of earlier times had available to them in terms of "stuff". Granted it is a fictionalized account, but does anyone remember the scene in one of the Little House on the Prairie books where Laura gets a tin cup for Christmas as a present, and is genuinely thankful and excited about it? How is that for minimalism? (It is kid's month after all! ;) ) It is only in a time when egregious surplus is taken for granted that such a notion could take on such a spiritual force and become a prevailing cultural trend. I would guess that anyone who suffered through the Depression during their formative years would not really get the minimalist/clutter-busting approach.
The way the style of the 50s is now trumpeted as being emblematic of a clutter-free, pristine, meditative, and elegant existence is a fascinating turning of the tables. In my mind the 50s was the decade when the tide towards the culture of consumerism and delight in acquisition of "stuff" was at its most eagerly accepted and heartfelt peak. If you look at preceding decades, privation was a much bigger part of peoples lives than in the 50s, even though popular styles of earlier decades were more elaborate. It makes me think that the coveted simplicity of MCM pieces is really a foil for a vastly increased rate of consumption. Not that such pieces aren't well designed or attractive, I just find it fascinating how styling is so good about twisting up and hiding aspects of an era and creating a sense of identity in people.
Of course I have to give a big shout out to clutter-collectors and big-book-pilers that make history research possible. Even though I have to admit the fact that my parents and grandparents are those kind of people has me just a little verklemmt.
Rasil, are there any links to the econ papers you mentioned? I'd love to take a look at them sometime if they are available online or in easily accessible print somewhere.
Who wrote this? Logic and success in the Stone Age? The big man on campus with a storehouse of corn? Ha,Ha! Quality writing!
When I was six years old, I visited an aunt for the first time in her apartment. She had a wall full of books, rooms full of plants, and two cats, and she lived blissfully alone in this "paradise." Outside of becoming Wonder Woman or a rock star, acheiving this kind of peaceful existence was the first dream I ever had for myself, and I clung to it through years of heartache and change. Now I have it. I have the wall full of beloved books, the dozens and dozens of plants that I adore fussing over, the two cats who bring me such pleasure...and more, I have a world of beauty and peace that I carved out for myself.
Some people might tell me I have too much stuff. But what should I give away in order to please those "others?" The artwork created by my mother and my friends? The treasured gifts chosen or crafted thoughtfully for me by people I love, maybe people I've lost? The lovely "hand-me-downs" that remind me of happy times with my family every time I see them? The plants that bring me so much joy? My art supplies? The rare or unusual books that I pride myself on having available to loan to my younger women friends, who for some reason aspire to be like me?
I do understand the problems of the consumerist culture. More than keeping up with the Joneses, many people in Western culture have reached a place of somehow believing that material acquisitions will provide them with emotional comfort. People seek out the biggest TVs, the most gas-guzzling SUVs, and so on, and keep looking for bigger and bigger homes to house all these possessions. That kind of "stuff" doesn't interest me, but the problems associated with consumerism do. The pressure on folks to own the "best" designer minimalist furniture, and to create perfect, clean, minimalist spaces also disturbs me as a problem of consumerism.
Perhaps the real question that people should ask themselves - and others have brought this up - is how does each of us measure success? Maybe I could do with less "stuff." Heck, maybe I could even be more "successful" if I had less stuff. But I'm not sure it would be MY definition of "success," anymore than owning a gigantic TV and a minivan and a Noguchi coffee table would meet my definition of "success."
I have achieved the first and most consistent goal I've ever had for myself. It's not minimalist. It's probably shamefully over the top. But to me, my home is a tiny retreat that bustles with life, speaks to the love and joy I feel, and washes peace over me every time I am here. I feel safe and happy in my home. What greater marker of success could there be?
Ever notice that the newly rich on MTV cribs tend to (1) have no art on their walls and (2) use wire hangers?
Fine china and silverware used to be the most important consumer items in the middle class household. "Stuff" used to be very expensive and labor intensive to produce.
Now we are suffering from the problem of too much goods and not enough time, but I am not what this has to do with "success." I agree that it is important to define the term.
At any rate, selection, and discrimination are luxuries. That's for sure.
Wow. This "essay" is exactly symptomatic of why I SO don't read Apartment Therapy any more--or at least not as obsessively as I have in the past.
It's just so uninformed at every level of the discourse of our common human being.
I've been looking up where and how the CEOs of major Silicon Valley tech firms live. Unless their 17,000-sq-ft suburban Woodside mansions are pretty empty, they're not minimalists. And they're successful by any conventional definition: rich, powerful, and famous through their own efforts.
In San Francisco, it seems that the people who live in small spaces are the poor (the mendicants on my corner can fit their possessions in a shopping cart), the artistic, and the people like me who would be middle-class almost anywhere else but live like "working poor" here. The "successful" doctors, lawyers, and financiers live in more conventionally sized homes over in the Marina or up in Pacific Heights.
I don't know. I like it so much that Maxwell throws out provocative ideas, and then I can't resist the urge to argue logic. Here's hoping our host is easy-going enough to be pleased with provoking discussion.
I'm all for minimizing, but the trend toward having less is also strongly promoted in tandem with replacing your goods with expensive, designed things--furniture, accessories, etc. Less is more, but less, funnily enough, is often more expensive.
One thing which Maxwell totally ignores - although several of the posters here reference - is the fact that sometimes things have a powerful emotional pull for people that has nothing to do with shallow materialism.
For example, when I travel, I often buy things for my home or things I can wear. I don't "need" them, but every time I see or use them, I get to remember those trips a little. I still keep certain dresses from my college days that I have no chance of ever fitting into again, because they remind me of those times when I occasionally come across them in the back of my closet.
Presents my family and friends have given me, books my friends wrote, the collar my previous cat used to wear before he died - these things and many more fill up my apartment, and the reasons I keep them have nothing to do with impressing people with my wealth or an empty need to buy. Sure, these things do have something to do with my past, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
Of course, investing things with emotional values can be dangerous - it starts with a few meaningful keepsakes and ends up with someone who is pathologically unable to part with anything and lives in a Collier's mansion. But I still think keeping some things around that remind you of who you are and where you've been isn't a bad thing.
And in terms of successful (which seems to mean rich) people having less stuff - that's definitely hogwash, and a very poor rhetorical trick to boot. Rich people have more room to spread out their stuff, can afford staff to help them organize and maintain their stuff, and in many cases blithely throw out completely good stuff so they can replace it with new stuff. I certainly don't think that makes them better people!
A generalization this may be, but where there is smoke there is usually fire.
Some of you are right in saying conspicuous consumption is alive and well, and there are a percentage of the weatlthy-for-the-moment people that buy a lot of stuff, be it big homes filled with lots of furniture, big yachts or Hummers.
But does this wealth equal success? Many of these wealthy people with a lot of stuff are the nouveau rich. They've had new found wealth that they have never had before and don't know how to handle it. A lot of them are overextended, or heading there.
That guy down the street with the Hummer and the Benz? Probably leased. But hey, they are living for the moment, and that may not be something to fault someone for.
I think you find success when you are able to edit your lifestyle, when you are able to identify the things that bring you the most happiness. In essence, when you are content. When you no longer need a lot of "stuff" to feel good, or successful.
I think it's fair to say that the pursuit of the simpler life is what most people are after. So yes, as cliché as it is, less is more.
This is weak thinking.
There is no proven causality between success and lack of possessions. One simple, obvious exampe - look at Bill Gates, a very successful person by many standards, and he has enormous amounts of possessions.
It may help someone to consider why they want certain possessions but having them certainly doesn't preclude success. To glibly claim this is misleading. This a great shelter blog but when it wanders into the fey spirituality stuff and cack philosophy I find it off-putting.
I am a buddhist and a minimalist but also a realist.
I think that Maxwell posted this and believes this because it makes him feel good about himself (since he does not have this problem now). But when we harshly judge people like this post is, what it really means is that we are secretly afraid we will become like them. In his book Maxwell speaks of a time when his life was filled with clutter. I think it's all just a little too close to home.
Stuff is not necessarily clutter if you like and use the stuff. Hate to sound like a broken record, but it's true. Plenty of people have possessions and manage not to be owned by them. I know I don't spend hours a week cataloging my music, dusting my books and polishing my statuary... not that I have museum-quality statuary but I can see a couple of busts and a vase from this particular desk perspective. Citing stuff as a byproduct of conspicuous consumption is also a canard; most people view their spaces in a nestlike way and decorate to please themselves, not some "other".
The caveman analogy is also weak, when this blog celebrates (cool)hunting and gathering most of the time.
I simply CANNOT BELIEVE that nobody called Emilie out on her facist, archaeic, dimwit comment about 'fat folks'. My God, can you really believe what you just wrote? Please!
Fat folks need to shed the weight and i am not afraid to offend them. I actually am being cruel to be kind. They run the risk of diabetes and reduced quality of life.
Watch Supersize This and think again.
Eeeck, Wende, Lori2, and Dorianne: You would have LOVED an exhibit I saw recently in Harlem at an art space called Triple Candie (in a former candy factory), titled "The Social History of Objects." There were several dozen objects — most fairly mundane, but some a little "odd" and not what most people have hanging around the house (like an iron meat hook, a pair of carved wooden feet, or a box of old lantern slides). All were things people held on to but didn't use for their original purpose, and all were accompanied by wonderfully resonant stories about how those objects came into their lives and what their significance was. I laughed, cried, and totally "got it." Alas, the exhibit is over now, or I'd send you off to see it at once!
One other thing has occurred to me, which I don't think anyone else has pointed out (unless I'm losing brain cells): by "successful," I don't think Maxwell necessarily means "rich." I think he simply means "happy with your life." I would consider myself "more successful" if it were easier to move around my apartment, find things I set down, and have people over ... things that don't require increasing my salary, just my willingness to get rid of things.
Schlaw: Sometimes ignoring something is actually the best "comment."
BZZZZT! Incorrect use of the word facist. Please return to history class. You may begin using the word again when you fully understand it.
Thank you for playing.
Jane -- You're breaking my heart. A "material culture" exhibit that's beyond my reach... *sob*. Quite a few of the books I technically could get from the library instead of owning are books on material culture that I like to have handy to read at midnight whenever I want.
One thing I learned this weekend while providing moral support to my mother's theatrical costuming project -- sometimes having more stuff is the key to success, provided the stuff is well-chosen and well-organized. We spent six hours going all over town trying to match some fabrics over something trivial but unavoidable. Usually she has exactly what she needs in her array of drawers -- in which case, a similar job would have been done in 15 minutes with no stress at all.
As we plan the move to much more suburbanized Phoenix, I'm also finding that while in SF it's cheaper and more efficient to minimize space and outsource many home functions (go to the corner store every day so they pay for the food storage space), in Sprawl City, it's a better deal to bring home functions back in-house (kitchen storage space is cheap and gas to go to the store is expensive).
'most people view their spaces in a nestlike way and decorate to please themselves, not some "other".'
i'm not sure i'd agree with this. i know so many people who nest based on what others might think, what one is "supposed" to do, what will impress guests, how their alterations will affect the potential resale value. hell, there's this entire TV show on HGTV that promotes the idea that you should get all new furniture (even if it's cheap crappy furniture) before you sell your house because somebody might come to the open house and not like your stuff and that might make them not want your house.
There's an argument against owning useless crap you don't love. (Stuff you love is by definition not useless) And there's an argument against buying-to-buy, because of trends.
But to not own things you like, when you can afford them, is silly and pointless.
Dorianne, I'm with you. Someone else can have my quota of Eames chair-and-rug, which ironically sounds quite pretentious and "stuff-for-the-sake-of-stuff" to me.
Oh, and while I'm picking logical holes... it's not until the 19th century (era of mass production) that middle-class people have huge amounts of stuff. Hoarding was neither a virtue nor affordable for most of human history (the granary was full to get you through the winter -- grain doesn't keep long-term, but without supermarkets and preservatives, you need that hoard or you'll starve). Check out the records of what was moved with medieval households among the nobility -- they just don't have much furniture in relation to the number of people.
Even Colonial American houses were sparsely furnished by current standards, since the residents didn't have access to the gift shop at Colonial Williamsburg.
Most of the philosophical bits of AT strike me as opposing late Victorian/early 20th century norms and sentiment about "home," which are perfectly good things to oppose -- just a lot more recent than the Stone Age. (The 1912-ish women's magazine articles on how urban hotel living destroys the family are totally choice.)
i'd echo wende's sentiments (it was something i noticed, too), except for one niggling little detail.
Walden. written in the 1840's, one of Thoreau's chief complaints was that his middle class pre-victorian peers consumed conspicuously and allowed their posessions to posess them. and i don't think he was necessarily talking about a recent phenomenon -- he doesn't make comparisons to colonial days or anything like that.
though i do think such concerns don't go back much further than the dawn of the middle class and consumer capitalism in the 17th and 18th centuries.
actually the first anthro/socio/historical idea that occurred to me when reading this article was the native american concept of potlach or giveaway -- wealth and status was measured in gift giving and how much you could afford to lose, rather than hoarding for one's own personal use.
Opoponax, I was trying to decide what to do with the 1840s, as you do start seeing greed showing up as a literary theme by then. (I went for ignoring them out of laziness because it's an era I find generally annoying. That'll show me.)
The standard Transcendentalist "simple living" move is to claim to be eschewing contemporary excess for the simpler values of Colonial times (more Brookhill Farm than Thoreau), though come to think of it, Myrna Kaye makes a big point of Colonial-era status consumption surrounding the tea service.
Jane--I'm SO sorry I missed it--I love that sort of thing.
As for the original essay, I was distressed by this on multiple levels. The historical argument doesn't work in the least; besides, if people were so good at "editing", we wouldn't know anything about how people actually lived (archeologists aren't always interested in the equivalent of an Eames chair, you know--they look at trash middens as well).
And quality (vs. quantity) is such a subjective word--is it style, personal meaning.... I want my home to express my personality, and that includes shelves of books, an embarrassing amount of shoes, two pianos, and a crazy dog. But these were CHOICES. More than amount of stuff, I think that's what matters--a successful life and home can mean so many things.
I have to stop before I get really, really worked up!
Oh. D'oh.
The Stone Age motif is much more rhetorically clever than I was giving it credit for being. If you pick up 1950s books of the "our wonderful modern life is the apex of civilization" sort, there is inevitably a little opener about human relations in cave man days. One can't plan a wedding, a house, or a business without help from Ug, Gog, and the gang. The cave men are usually used to naturalize current norms but occasionally as a contrast to today's greater enlightenment.
So it's highly a propos to see it with a revival of modernist thinking, if not slightly self-consciously clever.
I feel really stupid for having missed that.
My boyfriend, my cat and I just moved from our beautiful 1,000 square foot apartment to a temporary 240 square foot studio in advance of a big move abroad in a few months. Since we're only taking clothes with us on our big move, we packed off all of our valuable stuff into storage (including our massive library) and are now just living with a few pieces of furniture that we were planning on selling anyway.
And I have to say, my new lifestyle is exhilarating. I had no idea how oppressed I was by having to organize, clean and care for all of that stuff. Cleaning the house used to take 3 hours, now I can do it all in 30 minutes. Having a smaller place has also driven us outside more, and my boyfriend and I spent all weekend out and about in the city with our friends that we will be forced to say goodbye to in a few months.
I was initially really irritated that I'd have to move within the city before moving abroad, but it turns out it was the best thing that could have happened to me. I'm now really looking forward to our time abroad without any stuff. Now the only question is: What to do with all that stuff in storage when we get back?! P.S. The cat is adjusting surprisingly well to his diminshed surroundings.
Jane-
Wish I cold have seen the exhibit!
I agree with you re Maxwell's meaning of "success," and nothing in his post implied that success is related to financial wealth.
Pierre--
>That applies to food too. I see people at the supermarket hoarding wagons ! on a weekend and I see the same people everyweek with a wagon!.
These are called people with FAMILIES who shop only once a week.
Two wagons stuffed with food becomes a lot less dramatic when you realize its for 5 people, 2 big dogs, and three spoiled cats who insist on eating two meals a day.
>though i do think such concerns don't go back much further than the dawn of the middle class and consumer capitalism in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Actually, what you see starting in the 1700s is a fear from the upper classes that with things like cloth getting cheaper, people of lower social orders could afford to purchase the right "things" so that someone might not be able to identify them as not of the gentry or nobility, and they upper classes feared that an APPEARANCE of blurring lines might actually be a REAL blurring of lines. By the Georgian regency, this was a common theme in literature. True ownership of many things--haording and being a packrat--wasn't possible for the average person until the mid-19th century, though. You can see its influence in Dickens constantly but not in Thackeray.
A throw-away culture began to develop in the 1860s and 70s as people's labor became pricier than new things, and a concern about a "consumer culture"--or a real conception of it--certainly didn't exist until the 1900s.
I entirely ignored the "Stone Age" allusion because there wasn't a thing about it that wasn't spurious. The speciousness of this is even worse: "We now live in a fast paced, complicated age – an Information Age – in which stuff has become so irrelevant that it is now more of a problem than a boon..."
*rolls eyes*
You're in a desert, walking along in the sand when all of a sudden you look down...
What one?
What?
What desert?
It doesn't make any difference what desert, it's completely hypothetical.
But, how come I'd be there?
Maybe you're fed up. Maybe you want to be by yourself. Who knows? You look down and see a tortoise, It's crawling toward you...
Tortoise? What's that?
You know what a turtle is?
Of course!
Same thing.
What a load of old phooey!
If success is defined by lack of possessions then that homeless guy on the corner with one plastic bag of stuff is more successful than any of us
Yeah right...
Keeping things because you think you ought to (to keep up with the neighbours, because someone gave it to you, because everyone else has it) is bad - but keeping things that you love is good - many people live in apartments without fabulous views - if they didn't fill them with things they love to look at and own then they would be living in very sterile worlds indeed
Get rid of stuff you don't need or want - but keep ALL the wonderful stuff you love
Having the confidence to say "I love this stuff and I'm keeping it" is what makes you a successful person
the opoponax wrote:
"i know so many people who nest based on what others might think, what one is 'supposed' to do, what will impress guests, how their alterations will affect the potential resale value."
Of course some aim for showplaces, but there are plenty of people who get a charge out of their own interiors for purely personal reasons. I think most who frequent this site feel this way. My decor is for ME. If nobody ever crossed the threshhold, I'd still have things I perceive as beautiful - for my own enjoyment... kind of like wearing nice underwear even though you're not planning to strip that day.
Alterations to the STRUCTURE I can see; I'll probably live in this spot for just three years so will pass on purple tile for resale reasons. It's certainly daft to refurnish your house to sell it, although house flippers can benefit from putting something in there to signify "this room can accommodate a table and chairs" or "this is an extra bedroom and not a closet". Most programs aimed at selling houses advise people to take stuff OUT anyway, to make the structure look bigger.
But really, there are so many different aesthetics people like and pull from, and since most people can afford lots of "stuff", the mere amount of things (versus the quality of things) one has isn't a class signifier anymore. If someone likes English country, they will have more "stuff" than a minimalist will, but this tells you nothing about how successful he is.
I agree with Lydia.
Jane - your Dad sounds like a wonderful man
valerie -- notice i said "so many people" and not "everyone" or "AT readers" or "valerie".
obviously, just as there are many who let outside pressures dictate their choices at home, there are others who transcend all that. i certainly didn't intend that comment to be a critique of the AT community. it was a response to another poster, who assumed that obviously maxwell must be wrong because everyone knows that you decorate your home to suit your own tastes, not in keeping with social mores. which couldn't be further from the truth.
in fact, i think that even those of us who nest "for ourselves" and don't think we decorate to keep up with the joneses or whatever still include social markers and status symbols in our spaces. maybe they're not obvious, but they're there. maybe nobody relevant will ever see them, but they're there.
And in my daily counter-example... here's this great discussion of over-consumption as a literary theme, and I'm hamstrung by the fact that all my books are packed. Not that I even want to argue -- I want to be able to look up other people's references to appreciate them, too.
Poor Marva & Brian have a bathroom with no towels because most craft supplies are packed. Bleh.
I have always thought the same and have always tried to be efficient with my living spaces. I think I learned this from being a military brat and having to move every 3 years; never get attached to anything and don't accumulate excess 'stuff'. I've heard that the condition of a person's living space is a reflection of the condition in their mind.
All of you people need to read "The System of Objects."
For those of you concerned with archiving, why don't you consider libraries? Librarians are professional hoarders. What's more, we catalog and organize these cast-offs.
Recently the New York Public Library requested that political groups give paraphernalia created for or about the recent RNC. All those leaflets, pamphlets, tracts, fliers, CDs, DVDs, notbooks, posters, signs, props, and costumes are now part of history.
Did you know they even collect cigar boxes and porn?
Just an idea.
Go back and read it again. He didn't say not owning a lot of stuff or being a minimalist would make you successful. He said that clutter often PREVENTS people from being successful, i.e. being able to manage their lives with ease. This has nothin to do with economics, or wealth or power or most of the other directions this discussion has gone.
I've been having similar thoughts lately. When I was rich, I did what seemed to be appropriate. I moved into larger and larger spaces, and bought more and more stuff to fill those spaces.
A career change brought great change indeed. I had a huge 2 bed 2 bath apartment with three walk-in closets (plus another three standard closets, if not more)... I've been downsizing to where I am today: in a one room open loft that lists at 488 square feet. I have one small closet.
And I am happier than I've ever been.
Sure, it's easy to say that since I have less space, decorating it is easier - but the truth is that with a smaller space, details are easier to tackle.
Also, because I've downsized into living in smaller spaces, I can afford to move into the heart of the city. My loft may be one room, but the city feels like it is my living room. Within a few blocks of my home, I have shopping, dining, pubs, movies, parks, a wonderful library, museums, galleries, etc etc etc.
I can't believe I once let the quest for square footage push me miles away from everything. Never again.
Success is for losers.
Violetsrose: Thanks ... he was, indeed! What I posted here came from part of a eulogy I wrote for his funeral five years ago. We were so much alike, it was eerie sometimes to hear my own convoluted reasons for keeping things coming out of his mouth when we talked on the phone. We even used to set a time to call each other and compare notes at the end of a day of cleaning!
Being an interior designer it was hard for me to to downsize and move to a smaller place in the city from a large space in the suburbs. While living in the large space I had conceived big design plans. Some of the house got completed while other areas did not. I basically had to move out of what I considered an unfished space. In essence I was always trying to get to the point where I could feel that the space was done and this was my home. What I learned was that the bigger a space is:the more it requires of your time, money, and emotional investment.
Now I live in a smaller home with less stuff and more satisfaction. I was able to decorate the whole space of my small house as opposed to the larger past uncompleted house. Now my family and I feel we live in a space that truely reflects us. With all the money we would be using on a larger home we now save that to use on travel. It's interesting because a lot of our friends and family felt bad for us having to move to a smaller house but now I feel bad for them because in essence my family may own less space than they do but our bigger travel budget lets us see more space than they do!
Wish it were true...
THe successful people I know just have more houses (and more closets) ...
This is funny...
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/athome/298282_messy06.html?source=mypi
Maxwell, what a firestorm of commentary your post started! I think it's interesting, and I've read every comment. Two things come to mind.
First, remember that society at large values that which is difficult to achieve. In Victorian times, it was undesirable to be tan. If you had tan skin, it meant you were a laborer and therefore, in the lower classes, while pale skin indicated you spent your days sheltered from the sun living a life of leisure. Today, it's exactly the opposite. Tan skin is indicative of a life of leisure and those who are tan are seen as attractive. Leisure is difficult to achieve today, so the tan is valued.
In Medieval times, excess body fat was desirable, because it indicated you were in the higher class and could afford plenty of food, while the lower classes often went hungry. Being thin was easy because food wasn't readily available. But today, it's opposite. Food is readily available and those who are overweight are often scorned. Being thin is the more difficult to achieve so it is viewed as desirable.
This certainly may be the case with the accumulation of "stuff". In the past, a houseful of stuff would have been difficult to achieve and would have indicated wealth, but now perhaps it has become socially UNdesirable because it's so heap and easy to come by.
And secondly, as an human being and an organizing expert, my opinion is that each person gets to decide what will help them be:
a) Happy in their own space and skin
b) Able to grow, learn and express themselves
c) Successful by their own standards
Clearly, it's different for different people. If that means surrounding yourself with books, so be it. If that means living in 400 square feet with only the most bare essentials, so be it. For me, it means striving to always pare down and live with only those things I love and/or get use from. I feel this helps me stay focused on what's important to me.
The other thing I want to say is that we can't forget how dynamic life is. It's always changing, and circumstances change as well as our mindsets. I've worked with clients who have lived in clutter for years seemingly content, and one day they snap and can't take it another minute. It has so much to do with how we feel about ourselves, our lives, who we are and where we're going (or not). Fear plays into it, as well as guilt, shame, and a host of other emotions. These differences in emotion, personality, and perspective are what make us uniquely human.
~Monica
This is a pretty simplistic generalization, and a pretty snobby one. There isn't a correlation between amount of possessions and success (If we're defining success as having money). Hoarders can be both rich or poor. And a minimalistic existence is not exclusive to the "successful". I've seen both as well.
Hey- I love living the "lean life" too- but, the just-in-time mentality only works when society can respond to the needs of all individuals, in the short term. What are you going to do when a natural disaster hits? A terrorist attack? A Pandemic? You can be sure that under those circumstances, a person who has had the forsight to stash away certain " stuff" will be viewed as VERY Intellegent, and very successfull. The key is not the amount of stuff one has, but the essential-ness of the stuff.
My friend, you are mistaking the cause for the effect. They have less stuff because they are successful, not successful because they have less stuff. The successful find it easier to manipulate their environments for a variety of reasons. One of them is wealth, of course. You can pay someone to manage your stuff and thus obtain that stylish minimalism. But another is a concern for status and the right resources, awareness of cultural signifiers and the inclination to present a face to the world in your living space that speaks of your discretion and taste. In a place a time where a certain type of consumption reveals one's class origins yes, the successful will have less stuff. Just as they will be less fat.
What you say isn't all that much different than saying: The rich! They dress so much better. Think about the stuff these successful people have. They have good stuff, expensive stuff, the right stuff and not just the right amounts.
I also had to laugh a bit while thinking of places I have visited in rural areas of Central and South America where people could not have had less stuff. In some places, they have boards to sleep on and shorts to wear. The more successful among them have flip flops. There, the more successful, the more stuff.
I must admit there is a grain of truth in what you say since the poor fear deprivation and that fear brings out a tendency to hoard.
But isn't this website at least partly about stuff and how to get the right stuff and then arrange it properly? If you are very concerned about getting the correct stuff, you aren't free from the preoccupation with stuff that might lead you to do great things. But you did give me a great New Year's Resolution: Not only to not get more stuff this year but to stop thinking about stuff I want to get. To put stuff way on the back burner. So, thanks.
Um, ever visited a historic house owned by a robber baron? Check out the Vanderbilt's "Breakers" house in Newport and see if you still feel the same way.
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