I have never been a minimalist — no clear surfaces or artfully organized shelves have ever been a feature of my living spaces. I apparently lack whatever natural restraint it takes to keep a counter clear or a table top empty. Instead, I am overwhelmed with the compulsion to fill the space, creating small tableaus with plants, candles, books, art, cups of whatever I’m drinking, small ceramic pieces, or framed photos. I putter around my house, endlessly tinkering with these mini still lifes, migrating objects from cluster to cluster, where I can admire them from new angles, in different light.

“I have never been a minimalist — no clear surfaces or artfully organized shelves have ever been a feature of my living spaces.”

As I’ve spent more time over the years grappling with my own consumerist impulses, learning how to break up with boredom-based shopping, and generally interrogating the waste I’m personally contributing to our planet, I have, at times, felt discouraged by my tendency to accumulate (or generate) stuff. I keep everything: Books, clothes, and memorabilia. I actually print photos. Good quality cardboard packaging, sturdy gift bags, glass skincare containers, cookie tins, or even a really cool-looking rock are all the sorts of items I might hang on to. “That might be useful one day!” I always say, as I tuck it into the funhouse that is my basement. “You never know!”

“I keep everything: Books, clothes, and memorabilia. I actually print photos.”

If it sounds like a lot of clutter, it is, but I do also actually use these things. I am a visual artist and a craft mom, which both produces and requires stuff — paper of various weights and sizes, paints, pencils, adhesives, storage containers and more all litter my office. Works-in-progress are crammed into every room of our house. I am also, unfortunately, the sort of writer who makes vision boards and stacks books next to my computer, popping sticky notes to every surface, curling at the edges. Is it annoying sometimes to be surrounded by so much visual chaos? Totally. Is it also a fruitful and generative element to my artistic process? Sadly, yes.

I like to hunt for treasure with my child on nature walks or in the store, finding ingredients for a DIY potions game or a matching set of pajamas for the weekend her dad has a work trip. Do we strictly need these things? Probably not. Does it bring both of us joy as we mix food coloring and bath bombs while wearing our bright pink unicorn onesies? More than I can say!

But sometimes, I struggle with feeling like my houseful of stuff is saying something bigger about me as a person — that I’m ultimately wasteful, maybe, or that my mountains of material goods indicate a spirit that is less than pure. I don’t relate to the images and descriptions of the stripped-down lifestyles of the people we see at the forefront of sustainability movements — all those neutral colors and empty surfaces, everything seemingly made from natural materials, nary a logo or man-made hue in sight. These are the “good” people, living the “right” way. Right?

“I struggle with feeling like my houseful of stuff is saying something bigger about me as a person — that I’m ultimately wasteful, maybe.”

I’ve often admired these clean, naturally lit interiors as they infiltrated every media source I engaged with, marveling at how their limited color palettes and lack of clutter must inspire such calm, but I’ve also found myself wondering, “Where is all their stuff?” Then in other, more vulnerable moments, I’ve wondered if the question I should be asking myself is “Why do I have so much stuff?”

Sometimes, I’ve let my interpretation of the visual messaging of these spaces convince me that I, lover and keeper of all things, am failing at living sustainably — in a way that considers, respects, and honors the many facets of my individual impact on the earth and people around me. I’d look around my home, full of the items I’ve collected and held on to and cared for over the years, and instead of seeing evidence of the moments, experiences, and relationships these things represent, I’d just see my own failure. I have no restraint, I’d worry. I am too brainwashed by consumerism, tricked into thinking that buying a matching set of pajamas is joyful instead of wasteful.

“Instead of seeing evidence of the moments, experiences, and relationships these things represent, I’d just see my own failure.”

Scrolling through the hashtags and related accounts for sustainable lifestyle influencers and brands, I’d bombard myself with images of people living eco-friendly, waste-free lives, cataloging the ways they were doing better than me: A family wearing linen and cotton in shades of tan in their holiday photo, the kids playing with toys made entirely from unpainted wood; a stainless steel lunch box packed with all-organic fruits, vegetables, and farm-raised meats; a Halloween craft made from the carefully dried orange peels from a family’s morning snack. I’d look up from my phone at my table covered in mail and plastic Lego pieces, my mismatched, big box store dishes stained with store-bought jam and feel like a garbage person. How could I claim any authority to write about sustainability when I was eating bread that I bought at Target? 

Cataloging everything I was touching, from my clothing to the chair I was sitting on, I’d realize that not a single thing was organic, made entirely from natural materials, or even produced in a way I could confidently stand by. The worst sort of self-interrogation ensued: 

“Cataloging everything I was touching, from my clothing to the chair I was sitting on, I’d realize that not a single thing was organic, made entirely from natural materials, or even produced in a way I could confidently stand by.”

Who made this chair?
No idea — it came with the house when we bought it.

These leggings? 
Old Navy. 

What about this sweatshirt?
It was a gift with donation from a literary magazine, but I couldn’t say where they had them printed or who the manufacturer was. 

What’s it made of? 
*Checking the tag* Oh no, it’s Gildan! Made from 50% polyester blend. 

A fraud. I’d tell myself. Just as I worried I was all along.  

Then, the only thing to do was spend the weekend culling our home of all the “unsustainable” stuff — starting with my closet. What’s more sustainable than a capsule wardrobe? I’d tried to make one many times but always fell victim to issues of budget, time, indecision, or some other excuse. This time, I thought, this time would be different!

Afterwards, something felt off. I had a sparse collection of my most well-made, natural-fiber basics, several donation bags, and a list of items I now “needed” to replace. Because if clothes like that Gildan sweatshirt had to go, it left me with a sweatshirt gap in my wardrobe. 

This felt counterproductive to the exercise. In my good faith effort to live more sustainably, I’d somehow wandered into a consumerism trap. 

“In my good faith effort to live more sustainably, I’d somehow wandered into a consumerism trap.”

Finding me crying amidst every item of clothing I owned, my husband got a real earful of what I was feeling. “Whoa,” he said. “I feel like you’re talking about twenty different things.” Then he picked up my Gildan lit mag sweatshirt, which I bought to celebrate my first poem getting published. “Wait, you aren’t getting rid of this, are you?” 

“I don’t know!” I said, through a fresh wave of tears.

Somehow, I’d allowed myself to get tricked into conflating a marketing aesthetic with “sustainability.” These carefully curated, styled interiors weren’t, in fact, paragons of waste-free lifestyles, but clever campaigns to inspire me to buy more stuff. Plastic-free, all-natural, non-toxic stuff, but more stuff nonetheless. 

“These carefully curated, styled interiors weren’t, in fact, paragons of waste-free lifestyles, but clever campaigns to inspire me to buy more stuff.”

“But you love these things,” my husband said to me, as he surveyed the boxes filled with everything I’d cleared off our shelves. 

“Leave me alone!” I said, hauling it all down to the basement. “I just need to think about this!”

Here’s the thing: “Living sustainably” doesn’t have a single definition. We can’t apply a universal set of rules, or assign a visual aesthetic, or mandate a logistical practice that would work for everyone — not on an individual scale, anyway. Culling down on frivolous purchases, single-use plastics, or challenging cultural norms like kids’ party favors (notoriously packed with cheap plastic toys that parents hate and children adore), are all great goals, but sticking to “the rules” at all costs isn’t always reasonable or even possible. 

My family, for example, can’t ever achieve ideological purity when it comes to eliminating single-use plastics, because my daughter lives with a medical disability. Her treatment comes almost exclusively in single-use plastics. It sucks, and also, it keeps her alive. 

“Should I buy these cheap stickers? Probably not. But are they a versatile, sugar-free, inexpensive item that I use all the time? Indeed.”

On the more frivolous side of the spectrum, there is very little that makes my child happier than glittery stickers. You know the ones — those completely non-recyclable, plastic, literal pieces of trash that you can pick up everywhere from the grocery to the hardware store. Should I buy these cheap stickers? Probably not. But are they are a versatile, sugar-free, inexpensive item that I use all the time? Indeed. My daughter loves them. And they are the perfect thing on days when I want to incentivize or reward her, or when I need a quick, mess-free craft. They are also a great item to keep on hand when I need to improvise a gift or simply to cheer her up.

In other words, while they are not the “best” thing out there, they are actually the best thing for our family. And we can get a ton of mileage out of one sheet of stickers!

Sometimes it feels like what I’m doing is justifying my poor choices, but the truth is that living sustainably is a moving target. If it feels like we are often stuck between a rock and a hard place, or choosing the best between two evils, we often are. There are only so many resources we each have between money, time, and energy, and we live in the world we live in — one that makes single-use plastic options abundantly available, and reusable alternatives contingent on our ability to plan ahead. 

“The truth is that living sustainably is a moving target.”

Let me be clear: I am in no way advocating for complacency. We should think about the waste that we each produce, and we should educate ourselves about the choices available to us. In an ideal world, there wouldn’t be a churning pressure cooker of rapid-fire trends and powerful marketing campaigns guiding us toward tons of ultra cheap goods to meet the needs we’ve been told we have. But that is our reality. For many of us, it’s the one we grew up in, making these consumer behavior patterns deeply rooted parts of our daily lives. It won’t take one conversation, one article, or one weekend spent decluttering our closets to change a lifetime of habits that are reinforced on every screen we encounter throughout our day. 

What I am saying is that spending the time to truly understand your relationship with stuff is a long game — one that will take patience, honesty, and grace. And, at times, self-restraint. Though not exactly the sort of restraint I thought I lacked at the beginning of this essay.

“Spending the time to truly understanding your relationship with stuff is a long game — one that will take patience, honesty, and grace. And, at times, self-restraint.”

Remember when I was crying on my closet floor because I felt like I had too much stuff to be a good person? My husband told me that I was talking about more than one thing. It took me a while to understand what he meant, which was essentially this: Having a home without personal effects, collections, and clutter does not mean it is a sustainable one. It just looks like the sort of home we’ve been trained to read as coded that way. 

Likewise, those leggings I was wearing, from Old Navy? They are over ten years old. Same goes for the big box store plates I was eating off of. The bread and the store-bought jam are both items that my entire family loves, and they are in our budget — meaning that we eat every last bit of both items. We even keep the jam jars, to use as to-go containers, or in our potions game, or as vases. 

While it seems counterintuitive, my cluttered house of well-loved stuff actually is sustainable. Clothes that I bought on clearance from fast fashion stores are not inherently “bad” when you drill down into it. Like many people, I haven’t always had a robust clothing budget, but I still had to buy clothes for jobs, for pregnancy and my changing post-partum body, and for various events. I live in a mid-size Appalachian town, so I have been limited at times in my options — especially pre-pandemic, when ordering clothing online was just not something I was in the habit of doing. The most sustainable choice for me wasn’t always to plan, save, and budget for slow fashion purchases. Instead, I worked really hard on being a discerning shopper for myself, meaning that even if I was buying fast fashion, I was still only buying items that were relatively well-made and that I truly loved. Because I have honed this ability, I have made items from places like Old Navy and even H&M last for many, many years. 

“The most sustainable choice for me wasn’t always to plan, save, and budget for slow fashion purchases. Instead, I worked really hard on being a discerning shopper for myself.”

Sometimes I feel impatient about the things I own that don’t fit our standards. My coffee maker, for example, or even those Old Navy leggings, are not made from the best materials. They are both, however, in heavy use and still in working order. I take care of them. One day, they might fall apart in a way I can’t fix, or I might receive a replacement version made from better materials and produced under more ethical circumstances. When the time comes, I now have a wealth of research and knowledge of the brands I’ll turn to that are prioritizing sustainability and ethical values. Tossing out my working coffee maker and my leggings at this point actually would be wasteful. So in the meantime, I’ll keep using them.

I will drink my coffee from one of the too-many mugs I’ve collected over the years, wearing my well-worn Old Navy leggings, sitting at the kitchen table that came with the house, surrounded by the things I have made, gathered, and collected, and I will remember that living sustainably can sometimes look just like this: Using and loving everything I have, as long as I can.

Stephanie H. Fallon is a Contributing Editor at The Good Trade. She is a writer originally from Houston, Texas and holds an MFA from the Jackson Center of Creative Writing at Hollins University. She lives with her family in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where she writes about motherhood, artmaking, and work culture. Since 2022, she has been reviewing sustainable home and lifestyle brands, fact-checking sustainability claims, and bringing her sharp editorial skills to every product review. Say hi on Instagram or on her website.