Less is More — Here’s Why
It goes without saying that there are many “opposites” in life. There is no right without wrong. You can’t have happiness without misery. If there’s life, then there’s also death.
A less talked about “opposite” is that having less is actually more. This is less talked about for a reason. Who wouldn’t want more?
Think for a moment about something that you want more of. Is it money? Clothes? Shoes? Cars? Muscle? These are all common things that the majority of people want. And that’s normal.
Why wouldn’t we want more? Wouldn’t we feel a whole lot better?
Let me tell you a personal story.
Ever since I was a kid, I loved cars. Cars were all I ever thought about, so it made sense why all my toys were cars.
One of my favorite toys was this one R/C (radio control) car, which was a little toy car you could “drive” using a controller to go forward, reverse, and steer, like a real car. Obviously I was way too young to pilot a real car, but with a kid’s imagination, I felt like I was actually driving. Needless to say, I loved it. I spent countless hours driving it, and my parents spent countless dollars on “AA” batteries to power the little thing.
I was grateful to have the car, but when I would go into toy shops, I would see all these other R/C cars. They were bigger, faster, and a lot more capable than my own dinky little R/C car. I was a kid, so of course, I HAD to have one. And so I would beg my parents to buy me one, and the answer was always the same: “no.” When we would get home, I had no choice but to drive my wimpy little R/C car. As much as I dreamed of a bigger, better one, I still loved that thing, and I was happy.
Fast forward to 2019. I had just gotten a job at my local Goodwill, and I started to make money. As a high schooler who had never seen so much money before in his life, I was very irresponsible. This sounds insane in retrospect, but I actively searched for ways to spend my money. An overpriced sweatshirt that I’ll probably only wear twice and forget about after? I’ll buy it! A fancy looking aluminum mechanical pencil that I’ll probably lose within the week? I’ll take two! A subscription to Netflix, even though I never watched anything back then? Sign me up!
So my mindset was simple, yet foolish: always find ways to spend my hard-earned money. Then, my childhood nostalgia kicked in, and I realized that I could buy things that my parents couldn’t buy for me. And on the very top of that list? You guessed it, R/C cars.
Most R/C cars typically range in price from $5, all the way to over $2,000. At the time, more expensive meant more fun. And so, I spent a big chunk of my money on R/C cars. Okay, I lied. I spent all of my money on R/C cars.
My childhood dream to own all these more expensive R/C cars was bottled up for years, and now with the access to my own money, the floodgates opened, and I went wild.
I would buy one R/C car, drive it and have fun, get tired of it, sell it, then buy a different one. Sometimes, I would even buy multiple at the same time. This cycle repeated itself, over and over again. Between 2019 and 2021, I owned over 40 R/C cars. At a specific point in time, I owned 8 of them. My desk looked like a miniature parking lot. I don’t have an exact number, but I want to say the average value of these cars was around $200. Not cheap, especially for something that was essentially a toy.
Was it fun? You bet! Was it irresponsible? Of course! But there’s a reason that cycle fizzled its way out of my life. I got bored, and I realized that with each new R/C car I spent way too much money on, I was getting less enjoyment. If wallets could cry, my wallet would be in need of immediate therapy.
This is the law of diminishing returns, and you’ve most likely heard of it before. But I’ll explain it the same way my awesome economics teacher did back in high school.
(Mr. Kemp, if you’re reading this, I hope you’ll be proud.)
Let’s say you go to Dunkin Donuts and get a box of 25 Munchkins. Very specific, I know. You eat the first one, and then you eat the second one. With each additional one, you get more and more enjoyment. But by (depending on how much you love Munchkins) the 10th or even 15th Munchkin, you stop wanting more. Even if you were starved before, you simply don’t get as much enjoyment from eating more. But you continue on, each additional Munchkin filling your empty stomach. Then, at a certain point, you don’t want any more. If you did eat one more, you’d hate that.
In the beginning, more meant better. But towards the end, more meant worse. That’s the problem with wanting more in life.
We live in a world where everyone is convinced that more is always better. You already have something? Too bad. You need more of it. And as you can see, with my R/C car addiction, I bought into it.
But using my economics teacher’s brilliant example, you can see how more is not always better. If you really think about it, the opposite is true. We are actually happier when we have less.
If I could build a time machine and travel back in time to meet my younger self when I was mindlessly driving around that puny little R/C car, and explained all the things I just explained to you, he would laugh.
“Why wouldn’t I want more R/C cars?” my younger self would say. “I want more, I want them ALL!”
Even as a high schooler addicted to his expensive R/C hobby, I would still definitely call myself young. And when we’re younger, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting more. It’s the ideal time to put yourself out there and find what brings you enjoyment in life. You learn more. You enjoy more. And all of this awards you with experience.
Over time, as you grow up and mature, you accumulate more and more experience. That experience then teaches you the value of commitment, and you start to focus and commit to things that you value most in life.
After selling off more R/C cars within a 3-year period than most real world car dealerships, I began to refine my tastes within R/C cars. As of the time I’m writing this, I only have one R/C car that I will never sell. I committed to it because it’s my favorite, I enjoy driving it the most, and it’s the most valuable to me. I do have enough money to buy more R/C cars, but I actively reject that idea. I don’t want more. I don’t need more.
So you see, having less, in a weird way, gives you more. When you have less of something, you have more appreciation and gratitude towards that something.
And in a way, that’s really refreshing.
