When Linda and I embarked on our minimalist journey more than a decade ago, one of the turning points for me was the thought that our extensive library of a couple thousand books represented for us “an embarrassment of riches.” Not that it was somehow wrong for us to own so many books but the reality was that we had not read half of them and were not likely to reread the half we had read.

Also, with us being in the publishing business we got a significant number of the books for free. All of which made it that much easier to part with the vast majority of them when the time came for us to lighten our load in order to move more freely. And it is the sense of stewardship that I think gets lost in the conversation about downsizing stuff, living simply, becoming minimalist, or whatever you want to call it. 

As Joshua Fields Millburn [one half of The Minimalists] writes in Love People, Use Things: Because the Opposite Never Works, “Minimalism is a practice of intentional living. While it starts with the stuff, it’s ultimately a stewardship program for one’s life. If I could go back in time and impart wisdom to my childhood self, I’d focus on that one word: stewardship.” And I would add that it was our guiding principle as well.

One of the most helpful actions we took was parting with our possessions [particularly the books] in a very intentional way by identifying the people who we felt would best benefit from our largesse. For example, we had several textbooks and other materials from our ministerial training that we bequeathed to pastoral friends and others who would appreciate them. As the Bible says, “freely you have received so freely give.”

The only items for which we sought to recoup some of our investment were more costly ones such as electronics and furniture. We did not want to haggle with people over smaller items so we called ours a “curated estate sale,” got our local permit, and sold virtually everything over the course of one weekend. When all was said and done, we only got a fraction of our original investment from the sale, but much of the stuff we bought decades earlier. 

If I can leave you with one word of wisdom, it is to rethink how you view your possessions in light of the limited time you have here in this life. Linda and I were not simply giving our stuff away with a sorrowful attitude. Instead we focused on sharing it with people who could enjoy our stuff themselves, especially if they could use it more than us. After all, it is more blessed to give than to receive!