Do You Own Your Stuff or Does Your Stuff Own You?

I thought the old guy was nuts.

At 6’ 2” and 250 lbs with silver hair and a full gray beard, Bill was a gentle soul in an imposing body. After the church I was doing music for imploded resulting in both pastors leaving, he had been brought in on an interim basis as a calming presence to steady the ship. Being in his sixties, Bill quickly became a mentor figure to me, as my twenty-something self was reeling from the turmoil.

We were discussing how he was handling his possessions during his upcoming house move when he said the line that baffled me:

“You get to a point where you ask yourself if you own your stuff or your stuff owns you?”

I kept my face neutral and nodded politely, but I held an opposing view—I like my stuff. I want more stuff. 

Over the next twenty years, I got a lot of stuff. A big house in a gated community with mountain views. A library with custom shelves and wingback leather chairs. An upright video game console packed with arcade classics. Autographed posters from my favorite movies. The latest technology big screen TV. A baby grand piano. A backyard with a pool, hot tub, basketball court, and fire pit. Nice cars. It was fun.

For awhile.

Then my two kids got older, got busier, and went off to college. My wife was deep into her writing career. I noticed myself using our stuff less, enjoying our stuff less, even noticing our stuff less. It seemed like a lot. A lot of space. A lot of maintenance. A lot of expense. A lot of headache. It all began to feel heavy, like an invisible weight on my shoulders.

Then my wife and I watched a documentary called The Minimalists. It followed two guys who traveled the US talking about the merits of minimalism, a way of life that embraces having few physical possessions. They described the peace and freedom that resulted from the increased time and money that came from having less stuff.

Given my internal landscape at the time, it struck a chord. The lightness they spoke of made me jealous. So with a yellow legal pad in hand, I went through our entire house, noting every room, closet, cabinet, drawer, under-bed space, and flat surface holding a pile of something.

The pages filled quickly. I was astonished by the sheer volume of items we possessed. It was gobsmacking. The thought of doing something about it left me completely overwhelmed. I almost threw the list in a drawer and plunged my head back in the sand.

But I didn’t. I started with something easy, a small closet. I emptied it and sorted things into four piles: keep, sell, donate, trash. When the sell / donate / trash items were removed and the keep items were neatly returned to the closet, I was surprisingly happy. I felt a little bit of that invisible weight fall from my shoulders.

That first tiny success gave me the motivation to tackle a kitchen drawer. Then a cabinet. Then our office area. I gathered momentum and decluttered a room, then the small garage, followed by the big one. It took me a year and half to get through my list. You can imagine my satisfaction at scratching the last item off the legal pad. 

A year later, we decided to move to Sacramento to live near our son. Instead of buying a house, we rented an apartment in a walkable area. We took everything we needed and really wanted for our new, far smaller place, then hired an auction company to sell everything else in a single day, including both cars.

The sense of lightness and freedom was palpable. We loved our simpler, uncluttered, low-maintenance lifestyle. After three years, we moved back to Arizona and bought a 1054 square foot condo with one closet, pairing down even more.

Recently, we took another huge step on our minimalist journey and became nomads. We sold the condo, both our rental houses, and nearly all our possessions. Now everything we own fits in our daughter’s guest room closet and the back of our 2007 two-door Pontiac G6. We live in hotels, AirBnbs, and with friends and family, currently in the US, but we’ll soon be heading abroad.

We’re two months into this digital nomad journey, and the freedom is almost paralyzing. There are down sides—not having a place organized just for our comfort and tastes, the hassle of packing and unpacking, and transition days traveling from place to place are tedious. But the upsides are fantastic—a sense of lightness and adventure, seeing new places and meeting new people, visiting loved ones, having memorable experiences, no maintenance, little cleaning, low fixed expenses, and the flexibility to come and go as we desire. It’s marvelous.

Our love-affair with digital nomad life may come to an end, and if so, we’re good with that. We can always decide we’re done with the road and have a fixed address again. But for now, we’re enjoying this wonderful ride, one made possible by changing our perspective on stuff all those years ago.

Stuff is not bad. Stuff can be great. But excess stuff is not necessary for happiness. Some of the happiest people I’ve met have the least amount of stuff.

Is your stuff comprised of items that you truly want, need, and as organizing guru Marie Kondo says “sparks joy” in you? (We’ve discovered the number of items we need is actually quite small) Or is it a collection of things society and clever advertising say are “must haves”? Do your possessions really make you as happy as you thought they would? Or have they become slightly uncomfortable reminders of unmet expectations that you have to buy, store, clean, maintain, and insure?

Watch The Minimalists documentary on Netflix. Watch The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaners on Peacock (hilariously hosted by comedian Amy Poehler). Read articles by Marie Kondo (or stream her multiple shows on Netflix). Then pick a drawer or a closet or a tabletop to declutter. See how you feel letting things go. If you do, you’ll be on your way to more lightness and freedom, and you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.