7 Reasons Why Less is More (& How to Simplify Things) -

The Common Myth of Materialism
7 Reasons Why Less is More
How to Simplify Your Life
The Bottom Line

When people hear about monks and great philosophers, they get confused: why do they have so little, yet claim to be so happy?

This is the result of mental programming we’ve been conditioned to ever since we were born. Society convinced us that happiness lies in cars, money, relationships, looks, success. But is it actually true?

While wealth, possessions, and relationships can bring value, relying on them to feel good often brings disappointment and confusion. In fact, in many cases, the less we possess, the more happily and peacefully we can live.

In this article, we’ll learn about 7 reasons why less is more, and how you can declutter your life to increase peace and contentment. Let’s begin.

The Common Myth of Materialism

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One of the biggest traps we fall in life is believing that material possessions will grant us happiness. Most people chase cars, popular careers, partners – all without assessing whether they actually need them.

As a result, they spend years trying to obtain those things, and when they do, they feel euphoric. But that euphoria quickly turns into emptiness and dissatisfaction.

Why is that? It is because the main determinant of high quality of life is inner alignment. What principles you live by, how you help people, how you see and control yourself – in the long run, that matters much more than material goods.

Outside solutions cannot fix the core problems inside. You cannot substitute lack of purpose and knowledge about yourself with cheap dopamine and pleasures. This is because they only give you quick highs – but don’t directly address the core issues.

You cannot obtain purpose, inner peace, and contentment through chasing shallow things – you have to cut things down and look inside yourself. And that’s what I’m going to prove in this article.

7 Reasons Why Less is More

There are 7 primary reasons why having less actually makes you richer. The first one is that, once you declutter your life, you obtain more mental bandwidth.

1: You Gain More Mental Bandwidth

Now, what do I mean by mental bandwidth? It is the amount of information your conscious and unconscious minds can hold at a moment in time.

The more you occupy yourself with anxious/negative thoughts, worries about your future or possessions, and regrets about the past, the less capable of learning and deep thinking you become.

However, when you declutter and get rid of the unnecessary, your head gains more space. With that new space, it gets a lot easier to think deeply, process your internal problems, and pursue what truly matters.

For example, when you donate or throw away clothes and furniture you don’t use, you feel more clarity and calmness. Studies show that there is a strong correlation between clutter and mental health conditions, such as anxiety, depression, and long-term stress.

That means, the less unnecessary stuff in your home, the less prone you are to be anxious, disorganized, and chronically upset.

Gaining more clarity and mental bandwidth, with the right subsequent actions, also creates another benefit – deep peace of mind.

2: You Preserve Your Peace of Mind

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Think about people who constantly cling to the things they own. Do they truly feel happy organizing countless furniture items, watching an expensive TV (so that their money doesn’t go to waste), and thinking of how to pay their debts?

Of course not. Their stuff eventually becomes so numerous and important that they become possessed by it.

Meanwhile, when you live by the principle of “less is more” and focus on your actions, you automatically worry less. That is because you focus only on improving what you fully control – your mind, body, and your decisions.

You have full freedom to decide how you can spend your non-working day, how you should behave, how you should optimize your health – and that creates clarity and certainty.

Of course, it doesn’t mean that you should stop caring about the things you own and live like a Tibetan monk – definitely not. But you should consider buying only what you truly like and find useful, not what will get you the most external validation.

At the end of the day, nobody cares about whether you had a big mansion or a supercar. But people do care about what decisions you make – and that’s another reason why less is more.

Recommended article: How to Erase Negative Thoughts for Good

3: You Make More Rational Decisions

Many people who value fun, constant stimulation, and constant acquisition of more tend to take more risks and gamble. At a first glance, it may seem correct: after all, if you don’t try, you don’t win.

Look at the other side of it though: the more you seek risk and constant stimulation, the number you become to them. Over time, you need even more partying, even more luxury, even more substances – until you can’t feel anything anymore.

You can take a more rational approach by seeking less excitement and novelty and focusing on consistency of actions. What this means is that, instead of seeking happiness in external ‘highs’, you can seek it through limited, but healthy stimulation.

In the long run, reading books, meditating, working out, and creating something meaningful will increase your baseline happiness more than constant novelty and excitement would.

This is because the good habits mentioned above offer consistent, low-arousal stimulation that expands your mind. Meanwhile, seeking frequent highs and peaks causes short-term joy, but ultimately leaves you overstimulated and depleted.

This is another reason why less is more: when you embrace this approach, you make safer, but more consistent and rational decisions that ultimately make you better off than short-term comfort.

Another natural result of embracing minimalism is decreased attachment to the external, and the prevention of disappointment that comes with it.

4: You Become Less Attached to the External

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I’m about to make a bold statement: most of our pain comes from setting high expectations for events we cannot control.

When we expect something good to happen but are instead met with neutral results (or even losses), we become upset, blame everyone for our failures, and act with a sense of entitlement.

This rule becomes stronger the higher a person’s expectations are. It’s statistically proven that overconfidence and overoptimism usually lead to failure, and therefore cause high disappointment in the long run.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that you should always play it safe, never expect anything, and avoid all risks. Unless you see no point in obtaining external goods (practice Buddhism), this approach will leave you miserable.

However, when you decrease your expectations and assess potential wins/losses rationally, you become less attached to external results. Therefore, you attain more mental stability and baseline satisfaction with life.

Over time, you start focusing more on what truly matters: what you think, what you believe in, how you treat others, and what you do in your day-to-day life. Material gains become more satisfying, while losses don’t affect you as much as they normally would.

External things and relationships with others, while pleasurable, are still temporary and can be lost. How you live, what you do, how grateful you are – these things are permanent and unchangeable, for you fully control them.

Speaking about control: the more you focus on what you can control, the more competent and resourceful you become.

5: You Become More Resourceful and Competent

There are two rules of productivity that the vast majority of high performers use: Pareto’s law and Parkinson’s law.

Pareto’s law states that 20% of efforts and inputs bring 80% of results. Meanwhile, Parkinson’s law holds that, the less time a person has to complete a task, the more quickly and effectively they will complete it.

What can we infer from these principles? If you read them carefully, the less resources and time you possess, the more quickly and efficiently you complete your objectives.

That’s why you often see films with lower budgets outcompeting larger giants like Disney, whose film budgets often surpass $200 million, and even $300 million!

This unspoken principle applies to your day-to-day life too. In many cases, the less time and resources you possess, the more you value them and find creative solutions with them.

For example, when you have a power outage or non-working Internet, instead of spending time on low-value activities (like scrolling on TikTok), you are more likely to read a book, reflect on your life, or make notes for a project you’re working on.

Do not misunderstand it: I’m not saying you should stop using essential goods or stay off the Internet. The point is: scarcity creates innovation and efficiency in the long run. Discard what’s unnecessary and focus on what you truly find important.

When you do this step, you also naturally become more grateful. And that’s another reason why less is more.

6: You Express Gratitude More

Modern society and technology have made life more comfortable, but they’ve also stripped away many people’s ability to appreciate what they have.

We take our comfort, homes, food, water, relationships, possessions, and qualities for granted, and then wonder why we feel unhappy when we don’t get more.

The truth is: it’s not more possessions that leads to happiness. It’s the ability to recognize the good things you already possess – whether they’re material or not.

When you stop constantly wishing for more and focus on what’s in your life, you realize that it is much better than you thought it is. We only truly realize our blessings when we lose or acknowledge them consciously.

In the pursuit of more, it’s easy to lose track of how privileged and easy your life already is. Slowing down, taking even 5 minutes to express gratitude, and not clinging to possessions – that’s what truly nourishes the soul.

As a side tip, I suggest you adopt the practice of daily gratitude journaling. It’s proven to boost mental health, create low-arousal positive emotions, and even reduce mortality risk.

Finally, as you express more gratitude and build internal stability, you avoid overindulgence by choosing less. And that prevents many issues in the long term.

7: You Avoid Overindulgence

Many people, especially young, chase pleasure after pleasure. On a daily basis, they get stimulated so much that they become numb, unable to feel anything.

As said before, a life based on constant highs and constant excitement is not sustainable. If you consistently try to get more enjoyment through artificial means and possessions, you will burn out and become unable to enjoy life as it is.

This is because your brain and body will gradually adapt to progressively higher degrees of stimulation until you need large doses of something – just to feel good. This is why people scroll more and more over time if they don’t control themselves.

If you embrace the alternative and live by the principle of “less is more”, you’ll escape this trap. By refusing to numb yourself, you’ll avoid draining your resources and allow yourself to enjoy life by being, as it is.

Most people cannot sit with themselves and their thoughts without feeling bored or uncomfortable. Little do they know, this is what usually causes problems, dissatisfaction, and failure later in life.

Spend less time chasing highs and more time reflecting. Ask yourself:

Are you where you want to be?
What do you truly value?
Do you live in alignment with your principles?
And, finally: what can you do every day to improve your life?

How to Simplify Your Life

Simplifying your life and slowing down is a whole art on its own. However, there are some tips I can give you to immediately declutter your life and remove what’s unnecessary:

Donate clothes you dislike and don’t need
Sell furniture you rarely use
Work and rest in separate rooms
Delete the apps you haven’t used for a long time
Regularly clean your room and order your items (if you still don’t)
Limit the amount of time you dedicate to common tasks (e.g. 2 hours rather than 6)
Filter out relationships that drain your energy
Adopt good habits you can commit to daily

If you apply these simple steps, it’s highly likely that you’ll feel significantly better and achieve more, even despite having less.

All it takes is commitment, resolve, and ability to make independent decisions – the traits you’ve shown by reading the article to this point.

Start with simple actions: clean your room, donate old clothes to a local charity, and replace some scrolling time with reading. That’s how you make slow, but consistent and measurable progress.

The more time passes, the more mental clarity, peace, and satisfaction you’ll experience. In the long term, these rewards are more meaningful than any luxury purchase could be.

The Bottom Line

Happiness doesn’t come from things or people. It always comes from your character, habits, and experiences.

Modern society is obsessed with materialism. Instead of focusing on inner growth and contentment, most people constantly try to chase more, acquire more, become someone they are not.

This path doesn’t lead to fulfillment. While it may bring temporary joy and relief, materialism ultimately leaves you empty, unsatisfied, and hollow.

There is a better path, though – one that requires discipline and patience, but ultimately leads to a happier existence.

It is the path of simplicity and self-development. There are several reasons why less is more, and it’s worth simplifying your life because, as a result, you:

Gain more mental bandwidth
Preserve your peace and clarity
Make more rational decisions
Become less attached to external objects and validation
Become more resourceful and competent
Naturally express gratitude more
Avoid overindulgence and illness.

It doesn’t take much to acquire all these benefits – just commitment and willingness to endure discomfort. If you want to simplify your life, you should get rid of unnecessary things, gradually adopt good habits, and work on something meaningful.

Your vision of a ‘simple life’ might differ from mine, so you should do some reflection yourself and choose what you can change based on your own values and priorities.

With that being said, stay consistent, take care of your health, lift weights, and be a good man. Good luck, and have a peaceful day, friend.

If you liked this article and found value in it, make sure to share it with your friends and leave a comment below. See you next time.