Ten years ago, a postie delivered eight packages to my door. Each one contained something for me to photograph and promote on social media, and the pile felt ominous. Too much stuff, too much obligation! I was disgusted by the excess.
A few years later, my partner and I sold 80% of our belongings, and moved into a caravan to go on a road-trip around the country with our four children. I think this is called overhauling your life; when you subtract what’s superfluous so you’re left with the essentials – the things that really matter. Another word for it is “enoughness”: take what you need, leave the rest – a counter-cultural concept in 2026.
After a shift to van life and two slow years on the road, we eventually settled in a small town in rural Lutruwita/Tasmania. We bought a house, got a dog and enrolled the kids in school. People were interested in our choices, they were curious about one particular thing: how had I held on to the lessons I’d learned? What they were really asking was, how have I prevented my life from filling back up again?
Simplicity is intriguing because it’s a radical choice in a world that promotes more. From a neurological perspective it’s innately difficult because it goes against our primal instincts; we have a scarcity mindset so our brain thinks, “I better get this now because it might not be there later.” How does it play out in a modern world of abundance? We’re gorging on food, stuff and the infinite scroll of information and entertainment – our brain is full, which makes us feel overwhelmed and exhausted.
We all know this feeling: too many mental tabs open, too many obligations and to-dos, the pressure to keep going and keep up in a world that makes us question whether we’re good enough, whether we’re doing enough. How do we even start living more simply, more sufficiently, when there’s so much to strip away?
I’m not saying to take a red pen to your life and cut out the crap but, considering most of us have decision fatigue, using enoughness as a lens for our decision-making can be helpful. It prompts small but significant changes; how much you buy, what you buy, how much time you spend chasing what you don’t have and pining for what may never be yours.
There is a ghastly amount of stuff that already exists in the world and the donation pile at the op-shop in January is a pertinent reminder. I know I’ll contribute to it this year – like I do every year – and I’ll walk away defeated and disappointed. I know I can use this to steer my decisions. But I also have to be practical: when we buy something new (or new to us), we experience a dopamine-hit that makes us feel good, even if it’s fleeting. The ease of this transaction momentarily pulls us away from our niggling doubts and fears. It’s a distraction from everything that feels too hard – and when uncertainty is rife, it’s more pleasurable to indulge in what is predictable and comforting. We are human, and this is our nature.
There’s nothing bad about chasing a hedonistic life, but rarely do we consider the burden of what we own, the obligations we have, the need to work to pay for what we want. The root word of “thrift” is “thrive” and it’s true that there is a quiet, reverberating, even joyous energy when we mend what’s broken, use what we’ve got, grow something from seed and borrow what we can. As writer and psychologist Andrew Solomon says: “The opposite of depression is not happiness, it’s vitality.”
I know that living simply is easy in a caravan where you only carry what is purposeful. In a three-bedroom house, there is much more leeway and so my life often feels like it’s defined by odd socks, overflowing washing baskets and precariously stacked dirty dishes. And yet, my children are bowerbirds and we exist alongside their miscellaneous accoutrements; small piles of ephemera decorating surfaces. I know these things are not liabilities, as the work of life is also the proof of life.
But still, I want to normalise the simple things that help me practically apply “enoughness” in my everyday life: outfit repeating, buying pre-loved, using up all the food in the fridge, weekly library visits, planting and tending a garden, rest.
When you subtract what you can, you create breathing space – and we all need more of that.
• Jodi Wilson is a health journalist and author. Her new book, A Brain That Breathes: Essential habits for an overwhelming world, is out now
