For some time I realized our house was too big. When we first moved from our 950 ft2 apartment and purchased a 1,644ft2 house, it seemed like the normal thing to do. That’s what everyone does, right? They must do it for a good reason!
It turns out that my thought process was both ignorant and naive, and through the experience of owning and selling that home, I learned a few lessons:
1. Physical
Whether you’re talking about trucks, homes, collections, or bank accounts, American culture constantly reminds us that bigger is universally better. If the idiom “Go Big or Go Home” is any indication, that belief even extends to what we do. Like the bulk of the American public, I bought into this mindset without thinking twice.
I thought moving to a larger home (whether we needed the space or not) was the natural next step, but one aspect I overlooked was that more square footage also means the “need” for more stuff. A new couch. A new TV. A stand for that new TV. Twenty more tchotchkes to fill the empty space. You get the picture.
Once we bought the home that was too big for us, we (like clockwork) felt compelled to fill the extra space with new purchased goods.
Lesson 1: More Space = More Stuff
2. Temporal
The second realization I made was less obvious: purchased goods don’t just cost money – they cost time. It takes time to maintain, clean, and use extra space and additional items. It’s not inherently bad, assuming the time is spent in valuable ways, but given our 24 hour limit, as we obtain more, our quality time available for any given item is reduced.
For us, the additional space allowed for a TV and guest room. The TV room understandably siphoned hundreds of hours that perhaps would have been used in better ways. When it came to the guest room, or glorified storage unit, it took time to tidy on a regular basis, and more importantly, it created an unexpected emotional and mental weight.
Lesson 2: More Space = More Time
3. Mental
Not only does more space add greater fiscal and temporal burdens, it can also add emotional and mental elements. In the case of our guest room, it created a thread of guilt and disappointment about all the guests we hadn’t hosted. It also added a new mental file to keep about the items we stored within its four corners.
Of course, most individual items don’t add an unbearable mental burden. If you hit someone over the head with an individual piece of paper, they’d likely think you were mad, but if you combined 300 pieces of paper in a book and hit someone over the head, they’d likely cry in pain. The volume of information our brains can process is incredible, yet the more we file away, the more burdened our mental processing can become.
If we allow information to enter our minds unfiltered, the feeling of mental over-encumbrance is inevitable.
Lesson 3: More Space = More Mental Energy
What these lessons mean
Of course, acquiring space, purchasing goods, spending time on things, and allocating our mental and emotional resources aren’t innately bad. The core lesson I learned from the above three is that if we aren’t taking charge of the what and why of our choices, we’re doomed to live a pinball machine life – reactively bouncing between whatever new fad or belief culture (and marketing departments) presents us. Instead of being a reactive piece in someone else’ game, I’m learning to question the reasons behind my actions.
- Why does that extra 100ft2 matter to me?
- Will the space provide benefits that aline with my core values?
- Do these items I want to purchase provide beauty and value or are they merely filler?
- Am I trying to impress someone with this purchase, or is it attuned to my personal goals?
By pausing to ask the deeper questions, I’m finding opportunities to craft a more fulfilling life – not one without pain or hardship, but one with intentionality, simplicity, and value.
What would it look like for you to do the same?