The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life Is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store

by Cait Flanders

But since more of anything wasn’t filling me up, maybe it was time to challenge myself to go after less.

It challenged me. It turned my life upside down. And then it saved me.

It’s easy to look at a picture of a stereotype, point your finger at it, and say, “I don’t look like that, so I’m not that way.” By announcing this, we somehow feel better about ourselves, even though we’ve just shamed every other person who does fit under that umbrella.

But I was too busy to let my parents pass down their knowledge to me. I was too busy to spend more quality time with them. I was too busy to create those memories.

The little splash toward the end of one show that tells you what’s coming up next is done for only one reason: to stop you from changing the channel. And it worked on me for years.

“But what do you really want to do?” This was a question I had never asked myself. Every position I’d ever taken was for either the experience or the salary, and I was never happy in any of them. I would say things like, “It’s okay for now,” while I counted down the hours until I could clock out for the day. And I had always felt strapped to my desk, because I needed a steady paycheck for all my bills and debt repayment. I would buy things because I thought they would help me become a better version of myself, and I would take jobs with higher salaries because I needed to pay for it all. I had never stopped to ask myself what I really wanted,