Scarcity Brain: Fix Your Craving Mindset and Rewire Your Habits to Thrive with Enough

by Michael Easter

Preston explained that both overaccumulation and minimalism are “often driven by a kind of perfectionism where you want to do everything just right. There’s a sort of anxiety, but it’s different from overaccumulators. Overaccumulators have anxiety that they’re going to make a mistake and need something, so they collect and collect. But [minimalists] have a kind of anxiety around disorder and having so much they can’t escape.” Whether it’s keeping all sorts of odds and ends in your home for fear of possibly needing them one day or going all in on minimalism, “the behavior helps people find a sense of control,” she said. This is why blindly aiming for less doesn’t work. Minimalism looks good in photos we share online, but it doesn’t solve the underlying problem that we think it will. As with addiction, a better question is to figure out what’s bubbling under the surface. Why do we want less in the first place?