TED Talk Tuesday: Less Stuff, More Happiness

For someone who really hates moving, I seem to do a lot of it.

There was a nomadic stretch of my twenties that I moved 9 times in 6 years.

No matter how often I move, I invariably end up saying to myself at some point during the packing process,

"Why do I have so much stuff?!"

When I move into the new place, I have this little game I play with myself.  I vow to keep things pared down, and I promise that this time I will keep my desk neat.  That I will have a place for everything, so things don't end up cluttered.  This time will be different.


But a few months later, and I'm back to my shopping, accumulating, buying ways.  And then a few years later when it's time to move, I'm in an all too familiar place- staring at a mountain of boxes, asking myself,

"Why do I have so much stuff?!"

Here We Go Again

The interesting thing is, when I think of the times that I was the happiest, it's usually times when I barely had any stuff at all: backpacking through Europe, being dirt poor in college, traveling the world.  I had less stuff, but I was more happy, more free, and more ME.

In today's TED Talk, Graham Hill makes the case that editing your life and taking less space can actually make you happier.

Here are his three rules for living little:

Check out his TED talk here:

In what way can you edit your own life today?