I have way too much stuff. This is a quintessentially American disease - Europeans dont seem to suffer from it to the same extent. As for the rest of the world - well this is very much a first-world problem. Somehow over the years, the houses I have lived in have gotten bigger and the amount of stuff has grown to fill them. A reluctance to throw things away (just in case I might need it at some point in the future) means that my basement is full of boxes with the contents rotting away - well, not literally rotting away … ok, maybe in some cases literally rotting away. - (With a potential move to the UK looming, and with it the strong likelihood of having to downsize our family’s living accomodations, I thought this book would inspire me to do something about all my stuff and provide practical tips on how to do so. To some extent it did do that, but I found the book to be way too repetitive to be enjoyable. The material would make a great TedTalk or a long blog post, but as a book it was a chore to get through to the end.
Note that the author is (I think) a Christian Pastor of some sort, and the book is sprinkled with biblical and religious references. I wasn’t bothered by it, but if that sort of thing rubs your the wrong way then it’s something to be aware of. Having said all that, I was convinced by the basic idea of a minimalist lifestyle. Now I just need to convince my wife :-)