Wealthy Hoarders of 21st Century, UNITE!

a story about how much stuff do you really need?

When I came home after a long period of absence I noticed that our house is overcrowded. By eastern european it’s not a big house, nor small. Pretty average. Yet every closet, corner that is out of sight, shelf was struggling under the burden of our stuff. It’s not just us, it’s almost everyone I know.

These are times of amazing wealth compared to our predecessors had. Still, we are constantly unhappy and ungrateful for the stuff that we have. We never stop — even just for a sec — to enjoy what we have, we’re always on to the next one. That’s also strongly reflected in our purchasing behavior.

A planet of dumb hoarders. We get bored fast with our belongings because of our insatiable appetite for the newest and the best. We also keep everything, just in case. You never know when you’ll need it.

In our house there are 30 cups of approximately the same size. The maximum number of guests in the past 10 years was 6. You can imagine, more then half of these cups are just sitting there, doing nothing but gathering dust. How did that happened? I don’t know.

Ok, you receive some of the stuff that’s just laying around and there’s not too much you can do about it. But mainly for the superfluous stuff are the impulse purchases, the oh-my-gosh-those-cups-are-so-nice-and-cheap type of purchases to blame. If we add up all the money spent on those bargain deals that we make but don’t need, it would add up to a 2 person, low-budget, weekend road trip. Every year.

Remember one of the simplest, most engaging period of your life? Chances are it was when you were just a student. How many cups did you have back then? Probably you had 1 or 2. Ok, maybe 3. Life was a lot more simple and in many ways happier.

You have more and bigger responsibilities now. And that’s something you can’t really change. However, you can always reduce the number of cups in your life.