The Trouble With More

December 13, 2017

If you just picked up on the concept of hygge, you’re behind. The new design trend in homes this year is called Lagom. It’s the Scandinavian concept of having just enough, as in a sufficient, perfect amount. And I think it applies just as much to money as it does to designing a trendy home. As a society we have an obsession with more, but many are starting to realize that more is not always better.

More stuff does not equal more happiness

As I contemplated this trend (which would be a struggle for me to personally embrace, as I love a cozy home), I was reminded of an interview I watched several years ago with Tom Shadyac, the filmmaker behind the documentary “I AM,” but also the director of films like “Liar, Liar” and “Bruce Almighty.” He said something that really struck me about the excess he had accumulated during those successful years.

He said, “I was standing in the house that my culture had taught me was a measure of the good life, and I was struck with one very clear, very strange feeling: I was no happier.”

He went on, “I had a full-time housekeeper, I had a full-time gardener, I had a landscape architect, … I had a house manager, a business manager, a money manager, a career manager. I needed a manager for my managers.” He had tapped out on the more equals happier scale.

The trouble with always wanting more is that eventually it gets to be too much.

The Universe says that great joy leads to great abundance but that this is not true in reverse. I fully believe that — we can get so caught up in making sure we have an abundance of stuff or money, but that doesn’t lead to joy. However, when we pursue joy for the sake of pure joy, we often find that the things we really need are there in abundance anyway.

Lagom = more joy?

How much of our focus in life is about accumulating more? More money, more clothes, more toys, more square footage, more car. But do we ever stop to consider whether the moremoremore is bringing more happiness? Often it just brings more obligations that cancel out any added enjoyment.

Breaking the cycle

The next time you find yourself caught up in the cycle of wishing for more and therefore not enjoying the current enough, stop to consider whether the added responsibility of more will be worth it. You may just find that enough is enough. And that wouldn’t be such a bad thing now, would it?