The other side of the coin is that the fewer nouns we live with, the simpler our lives. To exert more influence over your life in the months ahead, lower your noun count starting today. It works.

One of the three major forms of nouns that can be lowered is things. The other two are places (Simplicity 102) and people.

Most of us own a lot of things. Ownership entails responsibility. Responsibilities are cumulative and interactive, so they compound complexity. "Things are in the saddle and ride mankind." (Emerson) To simplify, we eliminate things in our lives. In doing so, we open space for thought and experiences.

Some things are more complicated than others, of course. A simple unit of measure can help in lowering one's inventory of things. A belt will do, the kind we put around our waists. Everyone has a belt. It is a typical thing in that it occupies space, comes in multiple choices, gets lost, wears out, and is subject to occasional style changes that some feel obligated to accommodate. Let's call a belt one unit. Other things worth one unit include a toothbrush, saltshaker, CD, light bulb, bed pillow, pruning shears, or can of beer.

An automobile is a big thing and it is probably worth 5,000 units (belts). A regular 3BR-2BA house may be equivalent to 15,000 units. Trophy Houses with endless guest rooms and gadgets might run up to 25,000 units, in round numbers. In between belts and houses there are a lot of items. A set of golf clubs or a camera is easily worth 100 units, I suspect. A piano, 200. Pets, 400 each, maybe more, given the care that is sometimes required. Boats? I hate to say since I have one.

So, how many things do you have (in terms of belt units)? I figure I have at least 50,000--about the same number as there are different items in a Safeway. My number could well be higher. What's your count?

There probably is a better measuring system than belts, but however you tabulate it, chances are good that you, too, own plenty of things. And we both also own the upkeep that things entail, even belts.

Why do we have so many things? It's a long story. Americans are "materially ambitious" according to Samuel Eliot Morison, historian and author of many excellent books on American and maritime history. Our nation was founded on notions of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Over time our pursuit of happiness has evolved to equate, in large part, to the acquisition of things.

Professor James B. Twitchell (U. of Florida) summarizes it by saying that in our urbanized, secular society, materialism has replaced religion. Whereas Americans used to go to church to find meaning, now they (we) head for Costco or Wal-Mart. He goes on to say that consumerism has become the dominant value of our culture and that it can be far more liberating and democratic than spiritualism. If a person has the money or credit, he or she can overcome the limitations of class and upbringing and become whatever he or she envisions. As Twitchell puts it in his book, Lead Us Into Temptation-The Triumph of American Materialism, "Shopping is a quest for meaning and personal identity."

Other writers mourn consumerism and the wreckage they see in its wake. Regardless of whether deep down you feel we are acquisitive by choice or victims of the profit-driven producers of goods, it takes a magnum of courage to turn away from things amidst so much day-by-day encouragement to acquire them.

Consider this: By the time a child is ten years of age, she or he has been bombarded with a minimum of 100,000 messages to buy/consume. By age twenty, chances are good he or she has been well indoctrinated by volunteer corporate tutors to define him- or her- self via cosmetics, shirt logos, brand of car driven, type of shoe worn, breakfast cereal eaten, and so on, ad infinitum. And the cry to buy, as well as the ease of doing so, is increasing dramatically each year. Between the Niagara of catalogs and credit cards, the Internet, Federal Express, and UPS, adding things to our personal caches is, literally, child's play.

So how do we shrink our number of things in an attempt to scale down time-robbing complexity? It's tough work. It is possible, however, to methodically diminish our pace of buying, prune our existing inventories, and resist the omnipresent drum beat to buy. Here are five milestones along the path to simplicity:
1. Take consumption holidays. For example, a person can make zero, non-essential purchases (from stores, catalogs, etc.) during odd-numbered months.
2. Systematically shrink existing inventory. One way to do this is to adopt a one-year rule. If you or I don't use something for a whole year, we get rid of it. If one year squeezes too tightly, use two years.
3. Practice substitution. When a new thing is purchased, an old thing (or two) is automatically passed along to someone else.
4. Share. Routinely just give things away. Let someone else use books, tools, furniture, toys, trinkets, pairs of pants, coats, etc. that no longer add value to our lives.
5. Side step the insidious campaign to sell us things. For example, mute TVs during commercials; curtail shopping trips, especially where the layout is designed to encourage impulse buying; trash catalogs before taking peeks inside; and skip add-on purchases at check-out stands, including even post office counters these days.

You like things; I like things. But each single unit carries with it a responsibility of ownership. We have all heard a friend say: "Life was simpler right after I moved." The reason: the frienc had vigorously pruned her or his possessions.

Each thing we own requires time and energy that can be used for smelling roses, building friendships or doing nothing, according to your interests.

For those readers with a mathematical bent, here is the basic, underlying formula:

Noun Count x Simplicity Factor = 1000

Our Noun Count multiplied by our individual Simplicity Factor always equals One Thousand.

If you or I have a Noun Count of 100, then our Simplicity Factor is 10. 100 x 10 equals 1000.

If you or I must deal regularly with ten times more nouns, then our Noun Count is 1,000 and our Simplicity Factor plunges to 1. 1,000 x 1 equals 1,000.

In short, the more nouns we have, the lower our Simplicity Factor. The lower the Factor, the more complex our lives. If we lower our Noun Count our Simplicity Factor goes up. A higher number indicates a simpler life. Give it a try.


Copyright (c) 2009 by Steven C. Brandt