For the last three months, a friend of mine has been living in a storage room above his garage while his house is being built — he wants to be on the property so he can oversee the project.

All of the belongings he’s collected over years of travel and a career in photography are packed away in boxes stacked around the little living spot he’s created for himself. All he’s left unpacked are a bed, a table, a chair, a hot plate and some clothes.

You’d think he’d be going crazy with all of his things in boxes, but he recently told me he might not need to build the house after all. He is loving the simplicity of his life without all the “stuff.” With his space less cluttered, he has more time to just be.

Like my friend, I have seen myself and many others fill our homes and lives with stuff. We obtain so many belongings that we end up spending a huge percentage of our time managing it all — maintaining and caring for all our belongings takes time and energy. In the end, we often get rid of much of it, realizing it no longer holds the initial charm it once had.

As a result, we end up neglecting our inner lives, which have more meaning and value than objects ever can.

This realization got me thinking:

Maybe we complicate our outer lives to avoid all the clutter inside.

Maybe our deeper feelings get ignored when we occupy ourselves with all the external stuff.

Maybe our feelings are the belongings we should be cherishing and taking care of — there is a very complex and magnificent world inside there.

If that’s the case, maybe keeping our outer world simple will allow the beautiful complexities of our inner world to flourish and expand. Just a thought …