More Time & Less Stuff | An Illustrated Column By Ezra W Smith

By no means am I this fancy person who loves shopping. Until recently when thinking of the person who might have too many things, I was imagining Cher from the movie “Clueless”. I love Cher dearly, but she is not someone I can easily identify with. She is young, I am 30. She has money, I have rent that eats 60% of everything I make every month. I shop in vintage and secondhand stores (mostly due to lack of funds), I watched “True Cost” four times, I live in a small apartment with two other people, and I don’t have a separate room for my clothes like Carrie Bradshaw.

Ezra W Smith

And still, somehow, I have too many things. Not just clothes. But also clothes.

I have moved four times to another country in the last decade, and every time there were a few boxes of clothes I donated or threw away. Clothes accumulate wherever I live. Just like dust, appearing slowly but undeniably until you can’t breathe anymore.

And 80% of the clothes are that annoying “not quite right” type. Pants that are comfortable but only if you don’t sit in them for two hours. A blouse that is just slightly too small, so it unbuttons itself right where my breasts are. Not often. But often enough that you are anxious the whole time you are wearing it. Shoes that leave your feet bleeding, but only if you walk for more than 2 bus stops. And you know that. But somehow you still end up walking for quite a bit.

I believe that the problem is not the amount of clothes, but the amount of those “not quite right” clothes. This is what makes you wonder what to wear for more than a few seconds and blankly stare at the open wardrobe.

Granted, I didn’t really spend that much money on those clothes but even (let’s say) a few dollars per item is a fair amount, considering that during my intense moving around I got rid of about 35 boxes of stuff. Would I want to have that money now? Absolutely.

But even if I was going to spend it… How many hours of therapy could I pay for with this money? Even if just a few, that could make my life much better. Maybe if I hadn’t spent that money on clothes, I could afford a pet, another living soul, whose company would significantly improve my mental health.

And another perspective on this: as Henry David Thoreau once said, “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” How many hours did I need to work to make that money? Quite a few. Was losing that precious time worth those clothes I don’t even remember now? We don’t buy things with money; we buy them with hours from our lives.

How many hours could I have not worked in the past if I hadn’t spent all of the money I was making on stuff I didn’t really need?

And the last thing. Did wearing or owning all those clothes make me happier? Uhm… I do not recall that.

Honestly, I don’t think there are people who are getting happier by buying stuff – no research ever supported that. It may result in temporary joy for some, but the happiness found in buying a new item rarely lasts longer than a few days. In my case, rather a few hours.

And every time I saw something I liked at the store, I was imagining the time and the place I would wear it. One time last year I was thinking for a couple of days how cool it would be to actually finally enroll in Ph.D. studies. I always wanted to be a doctor. Not a real doctor, just a “Dr.” before my name. Ross Geller type of doctor. And then I saw that brown jacket. I swear to god, just like in a movie, I saw that really nice, serious-looking brown suit jacket and I immediately imagined myself in a big auditorium teaching 1st-year university students.

I bought the jacket. And it’s a “not quite right” jacket (imagine that!). The sleeves are too long. I told myself I will take it to the tailor, but I probably won’t. 

This is a very toxic concept. Brands sell you your dreams, not the actual clothes. And I arrogantly thought I was not like that. They can’t sell me cheap fast-fashion crap by hiring a supermodel to advertise it. I don’t want to be a supermodel. I don’t want to walk on the streets of Paris, light as a butterfly and all men looking at me. I have been to Paris – it’s not my thing. I like my very not-model-like body, and I have no interest in attracting men.

I don’t even shop in mass market. But I am a product of the society I grew up in, I watch commercials, and I have dreams. The thing is, in very limited situations will a huge amount of clothes help us achieve those dreams.

I bought the jacket. Which might or might not be a big deal. I bought it in a secondhand store for relatively little money. Certainly nothing to beat myself up over. A better question is: did I enroll in Ph.D. studies? Nope, I did not.  

So my latest insight about shopping is not that it is preventing me from studying. I figured, the reason I didn’t try to buy less and move toward having a more minimalist wardrobe is the fact that always, for as long as I can remember, I have been rewarding myself with stuff.

And the opposite: deciding to not buy clothes always sounded like a restriction, a punishment. I never wanted the clothes; I wanted that immediate boost of joy and the feeling that I was moving toward my dreams.

And I was never thinking about how much space that stuff will take up in my home and in my life.

Recommendations:

“The Beauty Myth” Naomi Wolf, book.

BeMoreWithLess.com, site and newsletter.  

Episode “Minimalism” of the “Be Uncluttered” podcast.