I am a modern American man. I can’t help it. I was born here, I grew up here, I worked some here, I spent what money that came my way here. What can I say? I am one of the most fortunate of all one-hundred billion humans who have ever lived because I just happened to live in a place where the public laws were reasonable and usually respected. The economy was stable and almost always growing at a noticeable clip, and I witnessed the technology go from horse-drawn equipment on our farm in the 1930s to driving a new sports car in the 50s, to flying jets for the USAF in 1960. Then having the luck to move to and live in Berkeley, California, for fifty years. For me, all of those things were a welcome part of a civilization I was naturally attuned to and I enjoyed it.
But now in many ways, my life has been cluttered with stuff. I don’t feel any particular need for more books, even though I read a lot. I certainly don’t need a newer car even though my current newer one is sixteen years old. A new car smells nice and might be a bit more comfortable, but my current old car will probably outlast the fuel supply the world will produce and it will outlast me. A nice new car would be more of a disadvantage than an advantage for me, so why bother? It would be a squandering of resources; it would be moving past the point of marginal utility into negative utility. It would cost more than it would be worth!
The books are a bit different. They do have an ongoing utility for me and I do like having them looking at me as I look at them. They are like old friends whom I can turn to occasionally and continue a conversation we had long ago. They do take up space, however, and they do form stacks near the places where I read.
Clothing I already have a closet full of, but of course, they are all old. I have barely bought anything wearable for years. As luck would have it, last month in a free box there were some professional-level kneepads which I unexpectedly picked up and have used almost every day. I have been making my house fire-resistant and it has required a lot of being on my knees sawing at stumps and roots.
This post was intended as examples of trying to find a balance of utility of everyday things. In a world of abundance, where many people are discarding still useful things, it becomes easy to live a second-hand existence, and the balance point for stuff becomes distorted and limited by storage space more than by retail cost of the items themselves.
An item is useful only if it has a use, but how do we balance the amortizing of storage cost to a possible future use? Space … the final frontier.
Probaway - Life Hacks 