We Have Too Much Stuff!

Paul Graham has written a beautiful article about Stuff
He puts it so succinctly; we, as “First World” people, have too much stuff.

He puts it that we overvalue stuff, and that we have been trained by the sellers of said stuff to value the stuff so highly.

So how do we see what we have that is stuff, and what is actually valuable to us?
Paul puts it very well in his article:

A friend of mine cured herself of a clothes buying habit by asking herself before she bought anything “Am I going to wear this all the time?” If she couldn’t convince herself that something she was thinking of buying would become one of those few things she wore all the time, she wouldn’t buy it. I think that would work for any kind of purchase. Before you buy anything, ask yourself: will this be something I use constantly? Or is it just something nice? Or worse still, a mere bargain?

I think that I need to follow this mantra. I know I sometimes see a gadget, or Guitar thingo, or whatever and go “WOW! That would be awesome to have!” only to find that I never actually use it.

If I just think about it and say “will I use this frequently?”; and if my is yes, then I may purchase it. Otherwise, I’ll just walk away.

All in all, Paul has written a great (as usual) article. I highly recommend you give it a read :)