Too Much Stuff, Not Enough Space

Since I’m on my winter vacation and, as a result, I’ve been watching more television than usual, I’ve been seeing a lot of commercials. Some commercials are thought-provoking, some have content that doesn’t relate at all to the product or service being advertised, some contain songs that get stuck in my head, and some–or, more correctly, most–are just plain annoying.

For example there’s the one that begins with a disembodied female voice saying, “Too much stuff, not enough space!” a million times. Of course it’s advertising the Space Bag, a bag that you put fabric stuff inside of and then vacuum out the air so that these items take up less space.

The idea is a rather good one because it can help you organize your home and make it less cluttered. However it’s not a solution for “too much stuff, not enough space.” By buying this product, you’re only acquiring yet more stuff. The solution, in my opinion, is to get rid of stuff.

Minimalism

This is an interesting topic to me and I hope someday to become one. And by one, I mean a minimalist.

Basically a minimalist is someone how limits their paraphernalia to only what’s necessary.

Wow, I love the word paraphernalia.

Anyway, often the common image of a minimalist is someone living out of a backpack with, for example, 100 items or less. I used to think too that the less possessions you had, the more of a minimalist you were, but that’s not necessarily true.

Minimalism isn’t literally defined as how many possessions one has. It’s a philosophy–a way of life–and even if you have a million things you can still be a minimalist, as long as you truly believe that you need those million things.