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It might not be Seneca’s greatest observation, but it is certainly up there:
With regard to the objects which we pursue, and for which we strive with great effort, we should note this truth…Some objects are superfluous; others are not worth the price we pay for them. But we do not see this clearly, and we regard things as free gifts when they really cost us very dear…We are eager to attain them at the cost of anxiety, of danger, and of lost honor, personal freedom, and time… There is a hidden cost to everything you own. Things don’t just cost you monetarily. They cost you mentally, too. On a recent episode of the Daily Stoic podcast, the serial entrepreneur Kevin Rose put it like this:
The thing that I’ve realized is that every object I own, every thing, is a subconscious mental burden. Without a doubt. It can be the wheel-barrow that has a flat tire sitting out in the backyard—some part of me is thinking about how I know I have to figure out how to get that fixed at some point. So I’ve reduced the stuff that I have by an order of magnitude. The things we own, as the writer Chuck Palahniuk put in Fight Club, end up owning us. Because now we have to use it, we have to get our money’s worth out of that, we have to decide where to put it, how to take care of it, how to insure it. Some part of you is constantly carrying these and other subconscious mental burdens.
“If you can’t stop prizing a lot of other things,” Marcus wrote, “you’ll never be free—free, independent, imperturbable. Because you’ll always be envious and jealous, afraid that people might come and take it all away from you.”
It’s really that simple. Reduce the amount of stuff you have and you’ll free yourself from this very heavy (and often unnecessary) burden.
Obviously, I take my sleep seriously. One of the ways I do that is with Eight Sleep—and I’m probably not the first person to tell you that. Their buzz-worthy sleep technology, called the Pod, can be added to your existing mattress like a fitted sheet to automatically cool down or warm up each side of your bed—and in turn, improve your sleep quality dramatically.
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