A House, a Home and a Life Well Lived

Having a home that makes you comfortable and stress-free is a goal that I’m sure all of us have. We all need that soft landing at the end of each day. I consider myself a level-headed person with strong faith in God and the awareness to realize none of us are leaving this earth with any physical possessions. I now know that our goal in life should not be about always having a bigger and better home to hold all the stuff we have accumulated. I’ve had to learn over many years that what we own can make our lives more difficult rather than easier.

I personally struggled with focusing too much on acquiring things over the years instead of managing with less and letting go of more. I have realized how much time is wasted simply from dealing with all the stuff that we once thought we had to have, that became just another thing that takes up space. Have you considered how much effort you put into acquiring more stuff? If you haven’t thought about whether you own your possessions or if they own you, I encourage you to focus on how much time you spend organizing the stuff around your home rather than actually using it. Are you organizing your home so much that you just keep moving things around and hardly ever really use those things?

I’ve been on a journey for the past year to simplify our life by eliminating excess possessions rather than reorganizing them (again). Materialism is defined as “the tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual values”. I have learned this lesson gradually and am still focusing on letting go of material possessions that don’t serve me as I move into the life of more simplicity and less stress. I don’t want to leave all the things behind for my family to deal with someday just because I found it hard to accept letting things go.

I want to focus on God’s purpose for my life and the future he has planned for me. A part of that includes having less to manage within my home. I’d like to share some of the experiences we had as a family to gain and acquire more stuff and bigger houses, only to find that we yearn for the days of a smaller home where we can simply live a sweeter and happier life. It’s taken a long time to learn this lesson but I am grateful we are taking steps to make life simpler.

My husband and I are celebrating 24 years of marriage this year. We were married in 1999, a whole different century than any of our children have lived through, and it sounds like so long ago. For our family, we can easily recall milestones based on the house we lived in during the time. We were 23 and 24, so not the youngest newlywed couple of the people we knew, but we had our college degrees, jobs, and good heads on our shoulders, so we got right into adulting with our first home purchase just four months after the wedding.

Little did we know, our life story could be told with each house playing a role as a background character. Each of our three kids were brought home to a different house, each home provided unique memories for us in that way. Home ownership has not only been an adventure for us, but also an investment. In 24 years we have purchased or built 12 homes, with 7 of them being our full-time home at one time or another, and the others have been rental properties we invested in.

What I found to be the biggest issue for us as we moved from house to house and had more space each time was how easy it was to accumulate stuff and ignore the fact we weren’t even using so much of it. I know these things were useful at some point, but just because there was a time when the item was used doesn’t mean it’s got to be a permanent fixture in the home. If you find yourself overwhelmed at the idea of even beginning the process of reducing materialistic items in your life, I suggest starting small. You can easily focus on one space at a time for a short period. Set a timer if you’re concerned about losing track of time. Fill one box with items you can take to a donation center and drop it off.

Once you’ve done that, take a moment to reflect on how it felt. We moved a few months ago and I knew for six months before listing the house that we were going to be selling, so I spent those six months gradually donating items that I truly did not want to move to another home. I donated so many items that I went to different donation centers so I didn’t run into the same people over and over. The relief I felt after each donation was something that is hard to explain. I had to get over the idea that I had spent money on those items and was now giving them away for nothing. The money has been spent, the item has served its purpose. Let someone else enjoy it now. Move on and do your best to not replace the stuff you donate with more stuff. Stopping the accumulation cycle is the biggest challenge when it comes to addressing materialism.