When Everything Is Your Favorite Thing

When Everything Is Your Favorite Thing When you get rid of most of your stuff, your life invariably changes: without all the things in your way, you have the opportunity to focus on the most important aspects of your life. But there was also an unexpected benefit from my newly uncluttered life: now I truly enjoy everything I own. Before I embraced minimalism, I had a lot of stuff: A three bedroom house teeming with stuff. A basement and a two-car garage filled with boxes overflowing with stuff. Spare bedrooms and closets and cabinets jam-packed with stuff. Every nook, every crannyâ€"more stuff. It was hard to keep track of it, and all that stuff added very little value to my life. It often just made me feel anxious, overwhelmed, and depressed. I was unhappy with the way I felt, so I started questioning everything I owned. Today I don’t own much, but the things I do own add immense value to my life. When I got rid of my extraneous material possessions, what remained were the things I use every day. Now nearly everything I own is my favorite thing. All my clothes are my favorite clothes. All my furniture is my favorite furniture. All my possessions are my favorite possessionsâ€"all of which I enjoy every day of my life. How about you? What if you enjoyed everything you owned? How would it make you feel if you were surrounded by your favorite things every day? Read this essay and 150 others in our new book, Essential.