One of the ironies of life is that the more we acquire, the more burdened it makes us feel. We are left with more to manage, navigate, overcome. We can become, in the words of JK Rowling’s wise accountant, little more than caretakers of our possessions (and ceaseless ambitions).
In a counter-narrative that bucks this trend, I have lately been hearing encouraging tales from people who have begun to let go of the excess, in ways that are helping them rediscover the truly essential. Some days ago, a good friend of mine spoke of a seemingly mundane experience, in this context, that has stayed with me. He had bought a new phone and encountered glitches while trying to transfer, from his old one, his staggering directory of 3,000 contacts.
He tried over and over, and it simply wasn’t working. That’s when he decided to take a different path. He decided to manually enter the names of the 100 to 150 people who came to mind first.
Those were the ones who genuinely mattered in his life, he reasoned. I was aghast, when I first heard his tale. As a fellow writer who has built a vast network over time, didn’t he fear losing out? What of that massive network that he had taken such care to build? “I haven’t missed a thing,” he said calmly.
It was a simple act, but it carried a profound lesson: by letting go of the excess, my friend was left with something more meaningful. He hadn’t just decluttered his phone; he had taken a step toward decluttering his life. In the process, h.