Uncovering the Life Beneath the Clutter

I believe we are all in danger of accumulating – it may be from thoughtlessness, or from pressure of occupation – things which would be useful to others, while not needed by ourselves, and the retention of which entails loss of blessing.

J. Hudson Taylor – Missionary to Inland China

I. The Tension

Nothing brings the weight of your possessions into focus like a cross-country move. In 2021, we moved from the Detroit area to San Antonio, Texas. Twenty-two hours and 1400 miles away. At some point in the process of preparing, you realize that you get one trip. No returns. Everything that you own now has to fit in a 20′ moving truck.

Suddenly, it hit me: everything I owned felt like a burden. The decision of what made the cut for the move forced a kind of reckoning—an invitation to see my belongings not as conveniences, but as commitments. Every item I came across, I asked the same question:

Do I really want to take this all the way to Texas?

The process was grueling at points. We had paid good money for this stuff. We couldn’t just trash it or throw it away. Facebook Marketplace became our life as we tried to offload as much as possible before the move.

There was a lot of tension in those days. I wanted the freedom to NOT have to haul a bunch of crap to Texas, and Ashley was worried about all the things we would need when we got there. I even intentionally rented the second largest truck just so we would have to take less things. It was often overwhelming.

But when it was all done, everything we owned fit in a 10×10 storage unit. We were barely paying for any utilities or services. No mortgage. No property tax. Short of our kids who we shared custody over, we could have gone pretty much anywhere. It was the first time in decades that we had so little tying us down. We probably hadn’t been this free since we graduated high school.

Unfortunately, at this point in my life there was still something in my soul that tied my identity to being settled. I couldn’t stand the idea of being completely adrift and I longed for the ability to call something my home. I experienced a lot of stress for the next three months caring way too much about finding a house and finding one I thought I was going to be happy with. In the end, I do love our home… but it was too expensive and too big. Now that it’s just Ashley and me in a 3000 square foot house, I find myself wondering – why did I care so much? And after three years in Texas, I imagine we’re right back to square one on the amount of stuff we don’t need. If I had it to do all over again, I would do things very differently.

Now Ashley and I are talking about RV’ing around the country, or even moving to Europe at some point. As I consider the need to de-clutter all over again, I find myself wondering, why do we do this to ourselves?

Maybe the real question isn’t how to get rid of things, but why we keep adding them back.

Ultimately, we don’t want unnecessary clutter distracting us from the things that really matter. Moreover, we long for room to move. Room to flow. The clutter of life, whether physical or virtual, is a burden that weighs us down. It hinders our ability to really participate in the dance of life.

The ability to move, to breathe, to change, to grow—it all requires simplicity. A life of simplicity is one of freedom. Flexibility. Agility. It’s a life where what you’re doing is what you’re choosing. Choosing because it’s of value to you. But many of us feel stuck. And the number one reason? The self-imposed restrictions we place on ourselves—especially when it comes to our things.

II. The Tax

The emotional burden of our possessions often goes unrecognized—the furniture we no longer want but can’t part with, the closet full of clothes we rarely wear, the time we spend cleaning and managing it all, the quiet dread of dealing with those piles of saved papers.

There are so many points—not just in my life, but really throughout the year—that I look around and think that I simply have too much. Sometimes, it’s overwhelming, just from an emotional standpoint. Everything in my house is just one more thing to look at, one more thing to make decisions about at crucial points in life.

The “clutter tax” is the mental, emotional, financial, and operational strain that every possession, obligation and financial commitment adds to your life. Most people don’t recognize that they’re paying it because they’re often stationary in life. Most people aren’t moving. Aren’t seeking new adventures. Aren’t imagining big dreams of what might be possible. But it’s worth arguing that perhaps one of the key reasons they’re not dreaming big is because of all the reasons they say, “I couldn’t possibly.”

Before we can move toward freedom, we have to confront what’s keeping us stuck.

III. The Trap

There are two dimensions to this trap of possessions. One sits on the outside. We’ll call this the treadmill.

The idea of the treadmill comes from a conversation with my oldest child. She told me she wanted a better job with more money. The goal was to be able to have a nicer car and a better place to live. I told her that living this way is a treadmill. It doesn’t just stop and you can’t just step off when you want. I told her she’d be better off working on a farm and writing or backpacking across Europe while she had the freedom.

The treadmill is playing the comparison game and wanting what others have. It’s the life where we tell ourselves that having creature comforts (car, house, clothes, etc.) will make us happy. But it’s a chain reaction. So many of the things we think we want in life just lead to wanting more things. After all, how did we re-accumulate all of our stuff in 3 years? Our 3000 square foot house would have looked awfully damn weird with our 10×10 storage unit worth of things.

The other part of the trap sits on the inside. We’ll call this one the scale. It’s how we’re always looking for something to measure our self-worth against. It’s the critic resident in our souls that tells us what we have is a reflection of who we are. Because of this, our possessions bring us comfort, control, security, and entertainment. In some cases (like mine), the problem is power. It’s not a matter of what I have that defines me, but what I’m able to have. The what is fleeting, it’s the when and the how that matters.

The trap tightens when it comes time to let things go—especially when we know that they no longer serve us. There’s a critical problem. Sometimes, the possession itself creates comfort or security. To let go of one is to let go of the other. Sometimes, it’s a problem of acceptance. How will others see me if I don’t have these things? Even if we get past those ideas, we still feel stuck. Deep down, we feel guilty. We know that we’ve overextended ourselves to acquire things that we don’t need for reasons that feed some of the darker parts of who we are. To now throw this thing out is not only an admission to this, but a wasteful one.

How do we find our way out?

IV. The Turn

There is a way, but it’s not instant. Much of this process is learning by repetition. Lots of repetition. I’ve gone through so many versions of believing this will bring joy into my life. And almost every time, the excitement fades before it even settles in.

The times when I have experienced the most joy have been the simplest—unburdened with stuff and distraction. Mission work in Mexico. Hiking in Zion. Opportunities to strip everything away bring such clarity. Then we come back to “normal” life and tell ourselves that living like this is just not practical.

But here is the key to unlocking the trap: We tell ourselves that living a simpler life is not practical because, at the same time, we’re telling ourselves that our lives must look a certain way. But if you step back and really start to ask yourself hard questions about why this is true—what do you find? If you’re willing to be honest with yourself, you will usually find yourself wandering through a labyrinth of expectations. But where did these expectations come from? Your parents? Your peers? Your culture and society? The agreements that you made internally to feel OK?

Beneath all that, who are you really? What do you stand for? What are you willing to sacrifice to get to the bottom of it? The cost of the trap is a grating, ineffectual feeling at the core of your soul. You know that you could be doing more, but you’re too distracted—too diverted. Your house is full, but on the inside you feel empty.

You know this is not the life that you were meant to live but you feel bound—shackled—by all the things that you own and all the debts you’re obligated to.

You want to throw it all out. Burn it all down. Start over.

The discontent you’re feeling is an inner earthquake. A violence. A rage at how stuck you feel.

What leads to the courage to break free is a righteous discontentment. An overwhelming dissatisfaction with the shallowness of life. It’s the longing for truth, meaning and substance—a longing for what’s real in life—that allows us to let go of the ephemeral.

To get out of the trap, we need to let go. Not only of our things, but the self that those things represent. We need to be ok with putting the person we thought we should be on the altar. We must forgive ourselves for the time and money we’ve wasted. Once we’re willing to let go of the lies and the limiting beliefs about what our lives are supposed to look like, then we can start to see the truth more clearly.

There usually isn’t a moment of grand realization that all the physical burdens in your life aren’t worth carrying. Instead, this is a process of deconstruction, where you shed the illusions about the things you bring into your life to build your identity or to prop up meaning. One by one, you begin to set them aside—until eventually, you start to see the pattern: that all of these things you’re grasping for are connected. Bit by bit, as you strip away the pieces of the trap, you begin to see your real self.

The Invitation

Simplicity is freedom simply because it relieves you of the burden of managing the non-essential. Everything you own comes with multiple kinds of costs—some you continue paying for as long as you own it. The less you have to manage, the more time, energy, and resources you have to devote to the things that really matter in life.

We like to think we can keep adding without consequence. But the truth is, every yes means saying no to something else.

There was a time in my younger days when I said yes to almost everything I wanted, regardless of cost. Whether or not I could actually afford it didn’t matter. It wasn’t long before I found myself buried in tens of thousands of dollars of debt. I had to spend years living a spartan lifestyle just to dig my way out. And while that season was about money, the lesson applies to everything: everything you bring into your life—financial or physical—comes with weight.

In all the memoirs of the dying I’ve read, when the reality of their imminent death settles in, they want nothing more than to surround themselves with what truly matters to them. Simple joys like friends, family, good food and experiences. Their stuff is never on the list.

For those reading this who long for a freer life, I respectfully invite you to examine your homes. Examine your schedules. Examine your budgets. Be ruthless. What really belongs there? What really brings value and joy? What really aligns with what truly matters to you?

Ashley and I continue to wrestle with these questions ourselves. We just talked about the possibility of taking a position in Europe. It’s still just a conversation, but it lit something in me—excitement, curiosity, a sense of movement. But right behind that? The weight. The furniture. The house. The stuff. If the opportunity came tomorrow, would we be ready? Or would the cost of clutter stand in the way of the life we say we want?

We don’t want to miss the life that matters most because we’re carrying too much of what doesn’t.