“Attached to Nothing, Connected to Everything”

Tip: Learn how to say no, detach, let go, and subtract everything in life

Just like in this ad by Finisterre from their London store, using what you already have is the most sustainable and mindful strategy about all things in life. Photo: Per Håkansson.

I often have to explain the idea behind fewer better things, as voluntarily choosing to have less stuff seems like such a hard concept to grasp for many people trained in frivolous consumption and that more is obviously better.

When I do, the coin usually drops and they realize it’s not about minimalism but about being mindful about our consumption choices, matching them with what really matters to us, and only buying the highest quality available.

The challenge is that we have only been trained, through marketing and consumption culture, in adding but never subtracting. And then of course, we all are susceptible to the endowment effect among many other biases.

“The endowment effect refers to an emotional bias that causes individuals to value an owned object higher, often irrationally, than its market value.” – Investopedia

We simple attach ourselves to the things we have spent our money on. They become ours I even if they are mass-produced in billions of copies and we never ever have, are, or will use them – ever.

Once I started to divest stuff fifteen odd years ago, I learned that letting go can be learned, it’s just than no brand is incentivized to do so, except for radical sustainable brands like Patagonia, and Esprit that ignited the idea.

My simple strategy to fight my emotional wants to make space for more important rational needs is as follows: