When I was in my 20s, decluttering was easy. I didn’t have a lot of stuff. I came to the US with a single suitcase, and I mostly kept my stuff contained to that suitcase for years. It was nice - every time I’d move when renting rooms (which was often), I’d go through all my stuff, put it back in the suitcase, and be back on the move.

My mom lived through the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which instilled a scarcity mindset - something I naturally inherited. You don’t own too many things, you take care of what you own, you don’t throw stuff away. Stuff was hard to come by, so you respected it.

The irony is that this mindset both prevents accumulation and makes decluttering harder. You don’t buy frivolously, but you also don’t discard easily. Every object earned its place.

I slowly started accumulating stuff. First, it was the computer. My love of both tech and games is no secret, so I upgraded from a tiny netbook into a full-blown gaming PC. It wasn’t anything to write home about, but it was big enough that it would no longer fit in my suitcase. There was a monitor too, so two things that I had to have. It was the first time I needed help moving - and my last landlord was nice enough to help - a suitcase, a PC tower, and a monitor.

I still didn’t have too much stuff, and a dedicated PC really was a great investment for a gaming enthusiast like me. I got a bicycle too, but that was really a transportation method, and while it was yet another thing - it made me healthier and opened up the city around me.

Clutter escalated once I rented an entire place to myself. All of a sudden I needed furniture, moving up from prefurnished rooms. At first I lived in a tiny studio which didn’t even have a functional kitchen. A bed, a clothes rack, and a desk for my computer.

The studio was cramped and utilitarian, but I remember a specific kind of peace. Everything I owned was visible from the bed. No hidden boxes, no “I should really go through that” guilt. I could see all my stuff. I didn’t realize at the time that this was a temporary state - not a lifestyle I’d chosen, but a constraint I’d graduate out of. Minimalism is easy when the life is not yet complicated.

I won’t bore you with every place I lived in throughout my life, so let’s fast forward a decade. My wife, child, and I live in our house in San Diego, and have a lot more stuff now. Naturally, all the furniture, clothes for three, kitchen stuff (I love to cook), so many different things. There’s all the home improvement stuff - hey, gotta keep the paints, the brushes, the hammers and the drills. Need all of that to take care of the house we own. I have many more interests these days too - from miniature painting to, as of recently, 3D printing. All of the hobbies take up valuable space.

I had a director, Luke, who was complaining about business travel - and me, being a young tech professional, could not relate. He would say “Home is where my stuff is. I like my stuff.” And now that I have more stuff - ugh, I get it.

I go through annual decluttering, Konmari exercises (“does this bring me joy?”). But it’s hard, because buying stuff is really easy. A few clicks and tomorrow (or sometimes even today) there’s a box on your porch. Look, just last week I talked about a phone keyboard I bought. The friction is gone. The decision to acquire takes seconds; the decision to discard takes emotional labor.

Here’s what I’ve realized: every object I own is a fossil. A little sediment left by a past version of myself.

The gaming PC wasn’t clutter - it was proof that I’d made it, that I could afford something nice for once, that I wasn’t just surviving anymore. The drill isn’t clutter - it’s homeowner-me, a version of myself that 20-something-year-old me with his suitcase couldn’t have imagined. The 3D printer is current-me’s curiosity, an exploration of a hobby. The miniature paints are the version of me that finally has time for hobbies just for the sake of having hobbies.

This is why decluttering is so hard. It’s not really about tidiness. It’s about deciding which past selves get to stay.

That drawer with random cables? That’s “I might need this someday” me - the Soviet scarcity mindset my mom handed down. The programming books I’ll never open again? That’s a young programmer me from a decade ago. The fancy kitchen gadgets I used twice? That’s “I’m going to become someone who makes pasta from scratch” me. Aspirational me. He didn’t pan out, but he tried.

Some of these versions of myself are still relevant. Some aren’t. The hard part isn’t identifying which is which - it’s accepting that letting go of the object means letting go of that version of me. Admitting that I’m not that person anymore. Or that I never became the person I bought that thing for.

I don’t think the goal is to minimize anymore. I’ve read the minimalism blogs, I’ve seen the photos of people with one bag and a laptop living their best life in Lisbon. Good for them, I lived that life before - hell, I lived out of my car for a year. But I have a partner, a kid, a house, and more varied interests. All of which come with stuff.

I want to be intentional about which identities I’m holding onto and why. Some sediment is just dirt - clear it out, make space, breathe easier. But some sediment is bedrock (I’m not a geologist, I don’t know rocks). The one suitcase life isn’t coming back, and that’s okay. I’m in a different stage of my life: I look back at my “simple life” with longing, but I enjoy my life today even more - or maybe just differently. I certainly enjoy it in the way important to me today.

So now when I declutter, I try to ask a different question. Not “does this bring me joy?” but “which version of me needed this, and do I still want to carry him forward?” Sometimes the answer is yes. The drill stays. The 3D printer stays. The gaming PC - upgraded many times now - stays. And sometimes the answer is: that guy did his best, but I’m someone else now. Thanks for getting me here. Into the donate pile you go.

It doesn’t make decluttering easy. But it helps me make peace with the mess. The suitcase me is not coming back, and that’s probably for the best - he didn’t really have much of a life yet. I’ve got more stuff now. I’ve got more me now. I’ll figure out what stays.

It’s been 10 years since I first wrote about my experience with minimalism. Reading through it now - many of the story beats are similar, but the perspective changed. Funny how that works…