When some of my friends came home this summer from college, I asked them what they learned about living away from home.

Every single one said they learned they didn’t need so much "stuff." They had packed thinking they’d wear all of their T-shirts eventually, or there’d be an occasion for every pair of shoes, or that lugging all their art to hang on the wall would really make their lives more cheerful. Of course, a little bit of all of those things came in handy, but was living in excess so necessary?

The way they described it reminded me of the way I live. You don’t have to go away from home to come to the realization you have too much stuff. And why do we? How did we get this way?

There is a damaging culture of fast or throwaway fashion, where some big-name companies having horrible working conditions in their factories to be able to keep up with the shopping habits of their customers by always having new items and to sell them at low prices.

Unassuming people buy into this thinking more is better and that it doesn’t perpetuate problems.

I’ve heard girls brag about never wearing the same outfit twice and it makes me shiver—where do they keep it all? I used to gladly accept clothes from friends or finding treasures at secondhand stores, anything that would allow me to have a vast collection of clothes. My closet would just pile up, hiding things so I couldn’t even remember what I had.

YouTube is overflowing with “haul” videos, where girls who buy a ton of things and talk about them. And it’s incredibly tempting to always have new things, to always be changing your style, but is it really needed?

French people are known for owning less and being happy with it. Imagine the culture of “You shouldn’t wear the same thing in public multiple times a week” disappearing, and having fewer items of clothing that are of a higher quality and you loved them.

When I look around my room, the ratio of what I own to what I use looks about ten to one. That’s so wasteful and it doesn’t even make me happy to own that much, it just makes me feel heavy with baggage.

So I challenge you to go through those things you own but secretly don’t like. And not just clothing, I’m talking about the other random things that take up your room or your living space and question if you actually like it.

If you haven’t touched it or thought about it in the past six months, why are you keeping it?

There are donation services for everything from clothes to furniture to food. Find out here which ones are in your area, which people/causes they benefit, and they will come to your house to pick it all up on a scheduled day!

Declutter your life of all the filler, and make sure it’s filled with things that actually improve your daily amount of awesome.