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But, in 2008, the housing crisis and the banking collapse exposed the fantasy of easy acquisition as humiliating and destructive for many people, it became newly necessary and desirable to learn to rely on less. Estimating the “maximum plausible growth of VS,” they wrote that as many as a third of all Americans might be converted to the simple life by the year 2000.

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In 1977, the social scientists Duane Elgin and Arnold Mitchell observed that, for several years, “the popular press has paid occasional attention to stories of people returning to the simple life.” Elgin and Mitchell believed that this smattering of articles reflected a social movement that could bring about a “major transformation of traditional American values.” They called the movement “voluntary simplicity,” and saw it as a potential solution not only to “growing social malaise” but also to ecological destruction and the “unmanageable scale and complexity of institutions.” They believed that a few million people were practicing full voluntary simplicity, and that as much as half the U.S.

I sounded, I imagine, like many of the converts to what might be considered the latest wave in an intermittent American impulse. “You get rid of the things you don’t need so that you can focus on the things you do! ” “See?!” I howled, irritating myself and everyone around me. Within hours of arrival, I had filled six large trash bags with clothes to donate. When I went home to Texas for the holidays, I entered my parents’ apartment as a whirling dervish of minimalist self-satisfaction, hectoring them to toss out their kitchen doodads and excess Tupperware. I Kondoed my sock drawer, tenderly unravelling lumpy balls of wool and cotton and laying each pair flat.

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Also on my syllabus were the books “ Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less,” by Greg McKeown, for whom minimalism is a habit of highly effective people “ The More of Less: Finding the Life You Want Under Everything You Own,” by Joshua Becker, a former pastor who wants his readers to free up their time and money for charitable causes and “ Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism,” by Fumio Sasaki, who writes with winning self-deprecation, admitting that his simple life style might make him seem like a loser.Īs I waded through this course of study, I felt like a dirty sponge being irradiated in the microwave: I was trapped, unpleasantly, but a cleansing fire was beginning to rage within. I read the blog Be More with Less, which is written by Courtney Carver, who came to minimalism after being given a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis and views the practice as a pathway to love and self-care. I also turned to Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, who call themselves the Minimalists and, under that name, run a blog, publish books, and host a podcast that is downloaded as many as three million times a month. Recently, I spent a few months absorbing the new minimalist gospel, beginning with Marie Kondo, the celebrity decluttering guru, whose book “ The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” has sold more than ten million copies, and whose stance can seem twee but is rooted in Shinto tradition: having fewer possessions allows us to care for those possessions as if they had souls. Think constantly about what will enable you to live the best life possible. Get rid of the things you bought to impress people. Know that it’s possible to live abundantly with only a hundred possessions. See if you can wear just thirty-three items of clothing for three months. Or wake up early, pick up every item you own, and consider whether or not it sparks joy. Pack up all your possessions, unpack things only as needed, give away everything that’s still packed after a month. The new literature of minimalism is full of stressful advice.