I don’t own many things—but everything I own adds value to my life.

Each of my belongings—my kitchenware, furniture, clothes, car—functions either as a tool or adds positive aesthetic value to my life; that is, as a minimalist, every possession serves a purpose or brings me joy.

Over time, though, situations’ll change—they always do. So I’m forced to ask the same important question over and over and over again: Does this thing add value to my life?

And it’s not just material possessions at which I posit this query: I ask it in regard to relationships, social media, and any other potentially superfluous matters in life.

I constantly ask this question because circumstances constantly change: because something adds value to my life today doesn’t mean it’ll add value to my life tomorrow, so I keep asking and I keep adjusting accordingly.

DOES THIS ADD VALUE TO MY LIFE?
Joshua Fields Millburn

“People today have made their lives difficult, because they are not satisfied with a few things, but are constantly chasing after more and more material goods.”

—Elder Paisios

Tell me, what better service do silver-encrusted tables and chairs of ivory-inlaid beds and couches provide than their simpler counterparts?  Yet for their sake the rich do not respond to the poor, not though thousands should come to their door crying with piteous voice.  Indeed, you refuse to give anything, insisting that it is impossible to satisfy the needs of those who beg of you.  You profess this to be true with your tongue, but your hand gives you the lie; silently, your hand bears witness to the falsehood, flashing as it does with the jewels from your ring.  How many could you have delivered from want with but a single ring from your finger?  How many households fallen into destitution might you have raised?  In just one of your closets there are enough clothes to cover an entire town shivering with cold.

—St. Basil the Great, On Social Justice

“For just as a little wine becomes an opportunity for the drunkard to drink some more, so also the newly rich, after they have acquired much, desire even more.”

—St. Basil the Great, On Social Justice

“When will you use the things you already have?  When will you ever be able to enjoy them, since you suffer constantly from the pains of acquisition?”

—St. Basil the Great, On Social Justice

He was made miserable by abundance, wretched by the good things he possessed, and still more wretched by the good things he still expected to receive.

—St. Basil the Great, On Social Justice

Things which have most hold on us, as the concealment of our few possessions, are often a mere nothing.  It is a nothing which our imagination magnifies into a mountain.  Another turn of the imagination would make us discover without difficulty.

—Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“If you lose something, be grateful. The loss frees you from care.”

—Abba Euprepius