I've Got Enough Stuff

By Jon Acuff

Sometimes, I like to pretend that I need some new stuff. I like to go to the mall and kind of mope around a little bit. I shuffle my feet, like a kid who didn’t make the baseball team, morosely walking through stores like Apple and Urban Outfitters®.

“Look at all the stuff I don’t have. So shiny. So life-fulfilling. So within reach if I would just spend a little.”

These are the sentences that play in my head like a shopping soundtrack. Whether in a store or online looking at products, these are the voices I hear in my head. But the truth is, I have enough stuff. Our garage is bulging at the seams. Our closets are stuff deathtraps. Monsters don’t even have enough room to hide under the beds in our kids’ rooms because there’s so much stuff.

We own a lot of stuff.

And maybe you do, too, but how do you know? How can you be certain that you have lots and lots of stuff?

Simple! Take this easy quiz:

1. If you move and don’t unpack half of your boxes for six months but are still able to live your life, you have a lot of stuff.
2. If your two-car garage is actually a zero-car garage right now, you have a lot of stuff.
3. If you have a small purse that you put inside a medium purse which both fit inside your large purse and you carry them all at once, you have a lot of stuff.
4. If you own more books that you haven’t read than books that you have read, you have a lot of stuff.
5. If you ever have to watch a reality show about clinical hoarding so that you feel better about the amount of stuff you have, you have a lot of stuff.
6. If you’ve ever worn two different shoes of the same color by accident because you have so many pairs, you own a lot of stuff.
7. If you use an expandable envelope for your clothing budget, you have a lot of stuff.

It’s not that stuff is bad. Hey, stuff can be great. It can be fun. My name’s Jon, and I dig stuff. But if Moses is the only one who could cut a walking path through the clutter in your garage, you may have a problem. Stuff will sneak up on you. It’s quiet and slippery that way. It never shows up in a large, loud U-Haul® in your driveway. Like the Trojan Horse of ancient times, it smuggles its way into your house in cute little shopping bags that seem harmless. And if you’re not careful, stuff will take over and one day—beware my friend—you’ll find yourself at work wearing two almost-but-not-quite-identical black shoes.