Transcription
If you are anything like how I used to be, miserable, constantly comparing yourself with others, or just believing your life sucks, [music] I think you should try saying goodbye to some of your things. And that was a quote from Fumio Sasaki in the book Goodbye Things. And this is the book that we're going to be reviewing today.
If you've been following my series for a while, I've started making videos on how I think it is best to overcome an excessive shopping or spending addiction. At least this is how I did it. And I battled a 20-year shopping addiction, which I never thought I would get control of. I thought I would be like that forever. And I've had many, many failed attempts. This, in my opinion, is the best way to do it.
And so, if you've been following the series for a while, we're on step three. And step three is all about minimizing and decluttering. And I want to review this book because I found it extremely informative and insightful. I had very low expectations when I picked up this book. Primarily because, if I'm being honest, I I have a hard time taking advice from men when it comes to minimalism. Because I I think societal expectations of men and women are entirely different. Men's societal expectations generally are surrounded by how successful they are or how much money they make. Women's are around their appearance, which relies heavily on consumerism to keep up with.
So, I picked up this book and I quickly read through it and I enjoyed it thoroughly and I thought it was worth reviewing because there are a lot of tips and advice and things that I have not heard from other people talking about minimalism and decluttering. So, we're going to go through all of those today.
Point one tackles the question on why we keep buying things, why we keep spending money on things when we've learned over and over and over again through guilt or just looking back at past purchases like, "Ugh, it didn't really fill up the need that I actually wanted it to," or "I don't like it anymore," or "I just regret spending money on that." Why do we keep buying things? And he makes this point that every object that we're numb to now once lit us up with joy and expectation. At some point, everything we owned, we wanted so badly.
If I look at everything from these lamps, this water bottle, this microphone, this this sweater that I'm wearing, everything, the shirts that I'm looking at over there that desperately need to be ironed, everything, even the camera that I'm filming on, although I'm so grateful I have this camera. I do love this camera, but everything that we are basically numb to now that we take advantage of that we kind of treat haphazardly are things that we once wanted so badly.
And so I'm going to read a quote to you that really stuck out to me and it was fairly early on and when I read this I kind of just put the book down for a second and I was like, "Yeah, that's this is me." To take our clothes for example. I often felt like I didn't have anything decent to wear. I'd spend my off days shopping and come home exhausted, but happy to have found something I liked. There had to have been days like this for all of my clothes. So why is it that now I look at my closet and sigh, thinking, "I have nothing nice to wear?" When we look at things in this way, we realize that many of our wishes have actually been granted. So why don't we feel satisfied? Why do we become unhappy?
I can't tell you how many times I have gone to the mall and this was generally when I knew I was going out for the weekend, whether it was a special event or literally just going out with friends or my partner and I felt like I needed something new because nothing in my closet, my very full closet appealed to me or made me feel attractive or confident or something that I actually wanted to wear. And the mall where I used to live in Rhode Island in Providence, Rhode Island was three floors. And I would go up and down, up and down, frantically in every store that I knew that I liked, looking for certain something to buy. Sometimes it would take me an hour, sometimes it would take me multiple hours to find something. Often I would walk out with one thing, sometimes I would walk out with bags of clothes. I have taken time off of work to go to the mall to find something to wear so that I would feel comfortable going out into the world being seen and being sociable in a social setting because without that uh armor or safety net I I felt like I would not be able to socialize in a way that I would need to or be expected to.
I also remember one time I don't know why this time sticks out to me. I don't know why I can't breathe. I'm just sitting here and I can't breathe. I used to take hot yoga in the mornings. This was probably like 7 years ago at this point. And I remember knowing that I was going away on a very short trip on a boat and it was going to be like a 3-day getaway on an island. So, I would need bathing suits and like summer wear. I'm also staying on a boat, okay? So, it's not like we're getting fancy here. And I spent my yoga class was at 7:00 a.m. in the morning. And I remember waking up at 5 and scrolling on Lulu's and Revolve. I think I went through every single piece of clothing on the website. Both of them. I can't tell you how long this took because I'm saying yoga because I scrolled in the morning. I drove to class and then I would sit in class for like 30 minutes before it started and just scroll. And I just remember like going through each one frantically feeling like I need to find as much as I could find so that I would feel comfortable going on this mini vacation. I would feel confident enough and I hate the word worthy enough, but really it was worthy enough to be with my partner so that he would feel proud that he had somebody that was somewhat attractive. I know this sounds so freaking stupid, but it's true. Cuz I would have felt hideous if I didn't. And then I would have felt like he would be embarrassed to be seen with me. That's actually the truth.
So anyway, I started off at yoga class searching for clothes very early in the morning and I think I ended around 9 or 10 that night and just the whole day wasted for the most part besides eating and driving shopping for clothes to wear when it's not like I didn't have a whole closet full of things that I loved at some point.
And so to bring this all back, it's really true. This is hedonic adaptation at its best. Hedonic adaptation is when you buy something, you are super excited, super joyful about it, but at some point you go back to baseline and you become what Fumio says is you become numb to the thing. It no longer brings you the joy and happiness that it once did. And so all of these, you know, dream purchases or ideal purchases or good purchases that we loved at one point barely register on our radar now. It's not about the thing that we're buying. It's about the possibility that that thing brings, what it will give you, like a different feeling, um, a different aesthetic. And he also, what's interesting, I feel like we're staying on this for a long time. Sorry, but this is just so true. It's just so true. If you have a [clears throat] spending problem or a shopping addiction, just really think about this. And I really thought about this when I did my declutter. This is why decluttering is so effective in getting over a shopping addiction because it is a physical manifestation of all the stuff that you own. All the stuff that at one point you said you would love, you would wear forever, it might be a timeless piece or it might be a staple and now you go into your closet and you look at it, you're like, "Should I just get rid of it? Do I need it? I don't like it. I don't want to wear it." 94% of my wardrobe was that I laid out all of my clothes and was like, "I don't like any of this." But at some point I purchased it thinking, "Yeah, I really like it and I don't like it anymore."
He also mentioned jobs, which was interesting. He said, "A lot of us go through daily life and kind of drag ourselves to a job. Not all of us, but a lot of us. I do this and we kind of if you're in the 9 to-5 world, you kind of just like suffer through the 9 to5. You get through it. You go through the monotonous steps of just like doing what you have to do to get it done. But at one point you apply for the job, you submitted your resume, you did the interview, sometimes multiple interviews. Chances are you were very excited to start that job. I know for me personally, the job I'm in now, which ironically I just put my notice in to leave yesterday, but the job I'm in now, when I first started it, I was ecstatic to start it. I was so overjoyed and happy even though it was literally a pay cut of half of what I had been making in my previous marketing job. And the first like 6 months I just kept thinking like, "I love the people here. I love what I do. I can't imagine never wanting to do this. Like even if it's 9 to5 I just remember thinking I freaking love this. This is so much fun." Now I look at it and I'm like, "This is torture. This is misery." So, it's just important to remember that the brain normalizes rewards really fast. Very quickly, we go back to baseline, whatever it is. And so, that in a nutshell explains why we buy so much stuff.
Point two is that the scarcity mindset persists in abundance. No matter how much he accumulated, he always focused on what he didn't have. In the beginning of his book, he starts off showing a lot of photos of what his apartment used to look like. And he was a maximalist to the 10th degree. He uh he was overflowing with stuff with books, with tech, with everything. And he said that he would go to even though he was buying so much he would go to his friend's house who uh appeared successful, various friends, and he would be jealous of what they had, what they were driving, what they were living in. As much as he was buying and accumulating, he was never focusing on just enjoying the thing or enjoying what he had. He was always focused on the next best thing and what he didn't have. And this is the comparison trap to a tea. Comparison fuels consumption.
And so when we are in a comparison trap, which I've been in so many I can't even tell you. I'm not I'm not focused on the, you know, 20 pairs of shoes I own, five lipsticks I own, uh I don't know, 40 dresses. I'm just focused on what I don't have. If I saw somebody with a nice bag or a nice coat or just an overall nice aesthetic, I wanted that. Especially when I was watching influencers, oh my god, I would just be stuck all the time just thinking about the amount of makeup hauls I watched and the amount of makeup I ended up with was [snorts] crazy because I was never appreciating the, you know, new concealer or new lipstick or new blush because there was always something new. The irony is so funny that the more we accumulate, the more we want, the more of a scarcity mindset we have, the more we the more we own and purchase, the more we feel like we need. He says, "I never realized before that I already had everything I needed to live a decent life. I kept wanting more and more and never felt satisfied. Now that I have parted with my possessions, I no longer compare myself with anyone. I used to be embarrassed whenever I would compare my miserable apartment with somebody else's home. Or I would see an acquaintance buying everything they wanted and feel envious. But now I've been able to say goodbye to that old me because I've stopped taking part in that rat race of neverending comparison and accumulation."
And this is one thing that actually holds true for me. I can't overstate how much of a mental and emotional shift it is to [snorts] once you stop spending money. Okay? Like once you get over that hurdle of chasing that dopamine and that that takes a while, right? This is not immediate. It could take like 6 months. It could take a year. It takes a while. But once you get over that and then you do a deep declutter like what he did and he got rid of all of his belongings. I have not gotten rid of half of what he did. But it makes you realize how much you actually owned that you do not care about. And once you get rid of all of that stuff and you've already decided you're not purchasing more and you just want to minimize, you do tend to look at things and people differently. I used to be a really jealous person, like really envious of anybody, any female that I saw, whether it was an influencer or in real life. If anybody was, you know, had anything that looked appealing to me, I would be so jealous and want it. And most of the time, especially if it was online, I would go out and buy it. Fun fact is that there is an influencer, what is her name? Lydia Lee Millan. I was so jealous of her because of her aesthetic and what she could afford to purchase and all these beautiful things. Like even at my level of spending money, I I couldn't spend on what she was buying. It was just too expensive that I I had to stop watching her because the envy was so high. But I don't feel like that anymore. I don't feel any of that anymore. I see her now all the time and I don't have an an ounce of that because I don't want to buy the thing. I don't there's nothing that I actually want to own. There's nothing new that I want to buy in shifting my mindset around buying and getting rid of all of my stuff. The comparison is basically very little now. I mean, I do have times where I'm insecure, but it's usually centered around other things now. That's not around like what I'm wearing or what I own. And now when I see people, I'm like, "That's great for you. I'm so happy for you that you own that Chanel bag or you have that beautiful outfit on. I'm so happy, but it's not for me." Yes. Scarcity mindset persists in abundance. The more you own, the more you want.
The next point is that he says that we buy things because we think our happiness and the way we feel about the thing will stay like that forever. We always assume that our present feelings will predict our future emotions and we never account for boredom or familiarity. Familiarity, why can I never say that word uh right? It sounds weird, but we never account for that. We always think that at least for me when I was shopping or was spending money on literally anything that was a materialistic thing that I could take home. I would say 85 to 90% of the time I would buy the thing and think, "I will love this for so long. Like this is actually the thing. This is going to stay in my closet forever and I'm going to wear it over and over again." Especially for dresses for events cuz I would always do a lot of deep diving for a dress for an event because I always wanted it to be perfect. I would do the search and search and search and I would find the thing and I'd be like, "This is the perfect dress. Like I'm going to wear this all the time. Anytime something comes up, I don't need to buy anything else." And then what would happen? I would wear the dress to the event. Turned out great. But then a few weeks later, it would sit in my closet. And the next time an event rolled around, I would not feel the same way about that thing. The happiness that I assumed I would have when I first purchased a dress and when I first put the dress on, that happiness I assumed would carry over for months and even years, assuming I would feel the same way. But I never did. And that's why I would pick up my phone and walk into a mall and do more shopping.
Fumio says that we use things to perform identity or to give us an identity. And we've talked about this a lot in the past in my other videos. And example for him that would probably fall in line with me for shopping for clothes is that he purchased a lot of books. He had a huge bookshelf full of books. And he said, you know, this bookshelf would just collect dust. And he read about a quarter of a quarter of the books. Most of them he had never picked up or even read a few pages. But he kept the bookshelf because he wanted to signal people that would see it that he was smart, that he was an intellectual. I think that he was an introvert. And so he wanted to signal like, "Yes, I'm quiet, but I'm quite interested. I'm quite well read. I'm very educated." We use possessions. We use products to signal something about us to the outside world. I don't know that I said this, but when I was doing my full decluttering and I was filming it, I was also reading this book fairly quickly. I was doing it in tandem because I just I really want to just keep top of mind what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. And so, this really stuck out to me because I was getting rid of a lot of stuff. "Discard it if you have it for the sake of appearance. We often try to use objects to show our worth. So you might ask yourself if you have some of your items because you're really fond of them or if it's possibly because you're using them to reflect qualities of yourself that you really want to highlight." He goes on to say, "Why do we own so many things when we don't need them? What is their purpose?" I think the answer is quite clear. We're desperate to convey our own worth, our own value to others. We use objects to tell people just how valuable we are.
This just really rings true to me with designer items to show or not even just designer items, but yes, a little bit because at least for me, and I've said this many times in the past on my video, I feel like I'm really close to you guys. So, let me just like back up a little bit here. I've said this many times in past videos. I I think many of you know that I shopped because I just wanted to signal that I was, you know, more important than how I felt or worth talking to or more attractive than how I felt. There's so many reasons that went into it. But in regards to using things to show how valuable you are, for Fumio in his case, he did that with through books. And for me, I did that through uh aesthetics, clothing, makeup, products, because I I felt like I had to, if I'm being completely honest, and I don't feel like this anymore, but my ex, who I dated for a long time, was very successful, and I felt like I needed to hold up that standard for him as his partner. And so I wanted to signal that I was worth being with him and I was worth being in that circle and that I could essentially keep up. And I I let go of that after a little while after being with him for like years and years. We were together for 10 years. It I didn't really care what his friends thought of me anymore. I got along with most of them anyway. Um but then the same thing happened with my current boyfriend. Now he's friends with a lot of people who are just uber successful. They have crap tons of money and um he belongs to a country club and is very uh insular this club and most of the people there have gobbles and gobbles and gobbles of money. I felt in the beginning that I needed to keep up appearance and I h I did that through signaling with the stuff that I owned and how I dress that I was worth being with him. I was worth being part of that environment. I was worth talking to. I was worth building a relationship with through how I looked. Now, I think that it is important to keep up appearance especially in that type of setting, right? Like you can't wear jeans. you can't go in there in like sweatpants. But I don't feel like that anymore. I've I've let go of that. I think why I don't feel like that is because of this whole process of uh, you know, budgeting and saving and figuring out what's important to me. And again, I'm not an expert at this, okay? I don't have this fully figured out. I'll say I'm like 80 to 90% there, but it depends on my emotions that day. It could change, but for the most part, I don't feel the need to wear things to impress other people now. Especially when I go to his club or go to an event with him. I wear things that I just genuinely like. I dress the way I genuinely like without trying to put a focus on how others will perceive me. And so, if we follow what Fumio says is that discard it if you have it for the sake of appearance. And in doing that, in just keeping that top of mind when I decluttered, it accounted for a huge portion of the things that I got rid of.
His next point is that the weight of his belongings was literally making him unhappy. Excess of possessions that many of us own create a mental load that I don't even think a lot of us realize. At least for me before, and I still feel like this. I still have another declutter to do. Okay, I got rid of a ton, but I I still got I still have more. And I think that's because I'm not living in the space that I want to live in. And some of the stuff I'm surrounded by is not mine. But um when I move, I'm going to do a huge one cuz this is still a lot in storage. So that's another video. I think actually in his book he said I think he actually ended a relationship over his maximalism and accumulation of things because it was just overwhelming to him and it was making him unhappy so much so that it ruined his romantic relationship.
And so one of his framings for this I absolutely loved. He says, "Think of stores as your personal warehouse. All those stores out there pay good sums of money to secure space so that they can stock all sorts of goods for us and manage these items with care. Convenience stores welcome us around the clock." So he suggests that we should not think about these places as shops where we buy goods but instead as warehouses where we can go to get something when we need it. All these companies out there are paying huge sums of money for retail space and it's like, "Thank you. You're storing all this stuff so that if there comes a time, not to, you know, casually passively shop, but if there comes a time when I actually do need to buy something, you are there caring for it gently, ready and waiting for [clears throat] me if I actually need it." And I really like that.
And then he says, "I love this. He says, 'When you become a minimalist, you free yourself from all the materialist messages that surround us. All of the creative marketing and annoying advertisements no longer have an effect on you. Celebrities no longer make you feel envious. Fancy window displays, reward cards, new high-tech products, new high-rise condos under construction. None of it has anything to do with you. You can stroll around town feeling comfortable and free.'" And I I feel this. He also says that every every item you own carries with it a micro responsibility. So, you have to either store it or care for it or even just look at it and look at the clutter, which like anytime I see clutter, I it's like a little ding of something that I need to do. I need to get rid of it. I need to store it somewhere. And so, if you don't have stuff to deal with, to care about, to organize, to store, then it's just less of a mental load. And I do love that he says that when you become when you become a minimalist, you free yourself from these marketing messages because I feel that now. I feel that now. I went into a Target. I think I might have said this in a different video, but I went into a Target recently and I had not been in one for a while. The Target is also in a mall. So, it was actually in a mall in a Target. And for the first like minute or two, I was surrounded by all this marketing and newness and beautifulness and there was clothes and tech and home goods and candles and all this stuff. And then within a second or two, I was like, "Oof, I just flipped the switch." And I was like, "Yeah, I don't want any of this. It actually doesn't look appealing to me at all." I walk by stores now, especially I I work a lot of my offices are on a main street, like Main Street, and these main streets have nice little shops and places you can go into and spend money. And I just walk I don't go inside, but I just walk by them and think like I do feel immune to it now. I don't I feel like I've got this barrier around me. I've got this little like bubble that these marketing messages and these companies and these brands can't penetrate anymore. It's so strange, but it's really effective. Once you get rid of all your stuff and you declutter, you just want less. And then you notice like a lot of the stuff is just wasted money. It's just not worth it.
He does talk about minimalism, but I think it's important to point out that his definition of minimalism is not somebody that owns like 10 or 20 things. He says the true definition of a minimalist is somebody who can tell you everything they own and know exactly what is truly valuable to them versus what they keep around for just appearance purposes or just to have. And so his exact quote is, "My feeling is that minimalists are people who know what's truly necessary for them [clears throat] versus what they want for the sake of appearance and they're not afraid to cut down on everything in the second category. Discard the things that you have already forgotten about. I think the ideal minimalist is someone who can give a rundown of every item they own. We should be able to recall our possessions if they're all necessary things that we use regularly. In other words, if we've forgotten that they even exist, then it's pretty obvious that we don't [clears throat] really need them." I love this because he does go on to say, you know, if somebody owns 300 items or a thousand items, but every single one of those items, they know what it is. They use it regularly. They love the thing, then they are also a minimalist. They're the same category as somebody that might own 10 things. The point is to not live in excess and not own excess. Especially if you don't even remember owning the thing and you haven't used it in a year. I used that when I decluttered. I was like, "Okay, if I have not used this in 6 months to a year and I forgot I even own it, then I obviously don't want it and I don't need it." So that's why most of the stuff got decluttered. Whenever I got stuck on something and I was like, "Do I really want to get rid of this?" I would just think like, "I haven't thought about this thing in like six months to a year." So yeah, I'm going to get rid of it. And he does make um a distinction for people who live in seasonal climates, right? Like you can't say 6 months and then if you're in summer, you haven't used something in 6 months because it's winter. So he does make that distinction. But if it's like everyday items or maybe it's a winter item that you haven't used in 2 years, then get rid of it. And he does say too like don't be the judgy person once you if you decide to declutter your life and if you decide to even become a minimalist, which I just want to be clear, I don't think I'm a minimalist. I'm definitely not. I strive to be I would love to be one one day, but I'm not. However, he says that do not judge other people for having more or less than you, cuz people are doing the absolute best that they can. Just do your best to get rid of everything in excess that you do not need.
So, he breaks down all these principles and tells you, you know, to just to get your mindset right and understand why we buy things, why we're doing what we're doing. Then he goes into the weight of these things, why we need to actually get rid of them, how to think about getting rid of them, and then he goes into like the practical tips on how to actually discard things. So on how to let go, he really emphasizes the fact that and I never thought about this before. And so once he said this, I it made me feel better a little bit about discarding and or lack of discarding for certain things. And he said, "Decluttering is a skill." I think it took him about five years to get to where he is now. So, it's not like he did it in one swoop. You know, I've already done three declutters on this channel and I will probably do a few more. This is a process and progress. You want to make a little progress each time. And so, he says decluttering is a skill just like picking up a new language. You cannot expect to, you know, start learning French and then be completely fluent in a week or two. It's not you. You have to take your time and learn how to do this. He also points out that loss aversion makes us overvalue the things that we own. He says, "The best way to get used to discarding things is to make it a habit. It's not the act itself, but the decision to act that takes time." That's so true. It's not the act itself, but the decision to act that takes time. In the same way that your skills in a foreign language will improve with practice, so will the act of getting rid of things. The more you do it, the less time it will take to decide. and the easier it will become to say goodbye to your things. It is actually a skill.
And then he goes on to say that momentum beats planning. So if you want to start, literally start right now. But don't start by thinking, "I'm going to get rid of everything in my bedroom right now." Like start with one thing. He says, "Don't wait. Discard absolutely immediately. Do not procrastinate on this. You want to do a little bit every day to get better, to build up the skill." And so he goes on to say, "A good basic first step is to start with what anyone would consider garbage. Throw away empty cans or food containers that aren't being used. Check your refrigerator. Get rid of the expired items. Discard clothes with holes in them. Throw away broken appliances. Start by cleaning out the things that have clearly become junk. Action creates relief. Procrastinating on declutter is just another form of emotional hoarding." And I love this because, you know, at least for me, I'm somebody who, and I did this with all my declutters, I felt like when I first decided to do my video on decluttering, I was going to do the I think it was the 30-day declutter challenge where you get rid of one thing one day. Day two, you get rid of two things. Day three, you get rid of three things, and then you build on it. But I was like, "I just need to do all of this. I just need to like get it done." But if things feel overwhelming to you and you know you want to get rid of things, but you have a hard time, do what he says and know that it's a skill, know that it takes time. But start in your pantry or your kitchen and get rid of all the things that you do not need that are expired that you'll never use. Get rid of old bad Tupperware. Get rid of broken electronics. Get rid of clothes that you have not worn in 3 years. Start small and build on it.
I want to hit on a few more points that I thought were really important and worth noting. No someday items. And someday items are aspirational traps for hypothetical futures. And what I mean by this is that, "I need this dress for an event someday that might happen," or "I need this, you know, bathing suit for some trip that I might go on in the future but is not planned or scheduled."
The next point is leave space empty. His point is that if you have a spare bedroom or just a spare room in your house, all of us want to fill up every room with um furniture and you know have it furnished for if somebody comes over or whatever. Says don't do that. Leave the room empty. It can be more calming, less stressful, uh super easy to clean and you don't have to buy stuff to put in it. He says like if you don't need to put stuff in it, do not put stuff in it. And then on a part of this note, I love this. This one quote, this one comment stuck out to me uh in one of my videos a while. I wish I remember who said it. uh the commenter, she said, "I've decided that uh guest rooms will now only be used for guests," which sounds obvious, but our last house that we were in for like a year, we had a guest room and the whole closet I I had half of our master closet and then that whole closet and the guest room was mine full of my stuff, my clothes, my shoes, my coats, my everything. And then I had Tupperware, not Tupperware, I had bins full of my stuff that was like winter stuff or summer stuff, whatever season. And then on the bed, I also had stuff laid out on the bed. I was like, it was just an extra room for stuff. So guest rooms should only be used for guests.
And then he says, admit shopping mistakes quickly. A lot of the times we hold on to things for two reasons. Because we purchased something, maybe it was expensive and now we feel like we did not get the wear out of it or we did not use it to its fullest potential and so we don't it's wasted money if we just then declutter it and get rid of it. And he says, you know, you've already made the mistake of making the purchase. Now you're making two mistakes of having the mental load of the clutter and seeing it all of the time and then also wasting the money on it. He says, "You've already made the mistake. Adjust for it in the future. Know what you did, recognize it, but then get rid of the thing if you're not going to use it." And he says the same thing with gifts. A lot of us hold on to clutter in the form of gifts because people have given us gifts that we might not use or want, but we can't get rid of it because somebody gifted to us. And he says, "Think about all the gifts that you've given. Do you remember half of them?" Because you probably don't. And it's likely that the other people that gave you gifts also don't remember. It's fine. They won't realize that it has since been decluttered. And then moving forward try to ask for no gifts. I have really tried to implement this into my life. I don't exchange gifts with my partner unless we have like a really clear rule in place. We don't really do gift giving anymore um with my family. We don't do gift giving because I just feel like is such a waste of money for them to spend on me on something that I probably don't genuinely want or like and now will have to live in my space because I feel guilty getting rid of it. And the same thing for them. I would probably give something to them guessing hoping that they'll like it, but most likely they won't and it won't be half as useful to them. And so the value of the thing, what I paid for it, the amount of money I paid for it is not worth it because they don't value it as much as what it was worth or what it cost me, if that makes sense.
And so to sum this all up, he basically says, you know, minimalism and decluttering, I can attest to this, has been life-changing. Again, I'm not a minimalist, but decluttering has been life-changing. And it is a crucial part in the step of overcoming a shopping addiction and a spending problem. It is so critically important to see the the physical state of all of your stuff and where all of your money went so you can start fresh and start a new and understand that learn the lesson of all the stuff that you purchased did not do anything for you and brought you no happiness in the long run. So like let's get rid of the stuff and let's start a new and understand how we are looking at this going forward. Honestly, I think that this book was really useful and I related to him way more than I anticipated. It is an easy read. I highly suggest it. I liked it. So uh there you go. Step three in the overcoming a spending problem. I also again have my declutter video that is I will try to remember to link down below. My shopping guide, my overcoming a shopping addiction guide is also linked below. It is free of charge. Try to take a look at it. Again, this is what worked for me. Hopefully, it works for you. I don't know. Everybody's different, but it can't hurt to try. The thing is free. Just go through it. See if you can take out at least a few pieces of it because it is a game changer. It really is. And I appreciate you sticking with me through this. And I'll see you in the next one. Okay. Thanks.