

If I had read this book a week ago, I would have stuck to one watch and would have been happy with it. Bean that I figure will last me for a good many years. I bought an relatively inexpensive but solid watch from L.L. (I know people who don't even own a watch, and just look at their phone if they need to know the time.) The watch with the brown band started losing time after about 25 years, so I decided to replace it. One with a black face and a black band, and one with a light colored face and a brown band. I also thought about buying things, often for no good reason. I know that I have too many things cluttering up my life, and as I was reading, I found myself getting rid of some things I hadn't used in years and probably never would use. I could have done without that.Īll of that said, I did find some good points in the book, and reading it did make me think about my life and some changes I could make to it. This book is an advertisement for Apple and its products. If finding a minimalism lifestyle worked for him, that's great, but I doubt that it would be a common cure for alcoholism, as he implies. Sasaki writes about being an alcoholic (he doesn't use the term but, to me, getting drunk every night and going to work hung over the next morning is being an alcoholic) before finding minimalism. Minimalism is the one true religion and you can change your life for the better by converting to minimalism. Reading Goodbye Things, I felt as if I was listening to a combination TV preacher and motivational speaker. In a way, it's the same deal - just going in another direction. However, he's gained an identity as a minimalist by giving things up. Sasaki writes about people gaining an identity through the things they have. In fact, the book could have almost been condensed to the "55 tips to help you say goodbye to your things" on the last few pages of the book. A good editor could have cut this book down to the length of a magazine article, added a few of the book's photographs, and nothing much would have been lost. Sasaki writes about minimalism in maximalist manner.
