eptember has a
way of exposing
just how much
we’re managing.
Summer winds down, school calendars return to the refrigerator, activities start filling evenings, work picks up, fall home maintenance creeps onto the list, and somehow the holidays don’t feel quite as far away as they did a few weeks ago.
It’s often around this time of year that I hear some version of the same thing: “There just aren’t enough hours in the day”.
And maybe that’s why one of the biggest lifestyle shifts I’m seeing has very little to do with adding more to our lives. Instead, people are looking for ways to manage less
For a long time, luxury was associated with having more: a bigger home, more things, more experiences, more options. But every addition to our lives comes with something we don’t always consider, the responsibility of managing it.
The house needs maintenance. The vacation requires planning. The dinner party needs groceries. The kids need rides. The dog needs boarding. The package needs returning. The car needs servicing. The plumber gives you a four-hour window. Your parents need a little more help than they used to. And somewhere in between, you’re supposed to work, maintain relationships and actually enjoy the life you’ve worked so hard to build.
None of those things, individually, is particularly overwhelming.
It’s the accumulation that gets us.
Photo Credit Vitaly Gariev
The New Luxury Is Having Less to Manage
BY LIZ REITZ
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