Overstuffed.

• Author: Rundles, Jeff
• Position: RUNDLES [wrap-up] - Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Carlos Slim Helu

Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, the world's second and third richest men, respectively, are trying to round up the world's billionaires to join their movement to give half their fortunes away.

The world's richest man, Mexican Carlos Slim Helu, says such acts of philanthropy "won't solve any problems."

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Slim, as he is referred to, was suggesting that even if a few hundred billionaires give away half their fortunes to charities, universities and health-care initiatives, the money would be a relatively meager resource. I think he missed the point.

Sure, Buffett and Gates and other "good deed doers" seek to use their enormous resources to help solve problems. But I suspect they also realize that at some point a fortune is just like a bunch of knick-knacks collecting dust in basement storage. Once you have more than enough stuff--in their case, money is stuff- the rest of it is just excess that eventually someone else will have to figure out how to dispense. Better to de-clutter yourself while you still have some say in its disposition.

Most of us aren't billionaires, but most of us have too much stuff, and the majority of it is useless in our lives. Disposition of it in a thoughtful way can be useful to someone else or to some cause, of course, but the act of disposition itself can be cathartic.

There's an old saying that men are just boys with more expensive toys. The key here isn't the expense, but the more. We have too much stuff. I am reminded of that clever advertisement for the old flea market about being the place where "the overstuffed sell stuff to the understuffed."

I used to collect things--cameras, typewriters--but after so many years I realized all I was collecting was dust. I quit collecting anything that I don't use regularly, and still each time I go through my closet or my dresser or a box in the basement I find stuff I haven't paid any attention to in some time, and I downsize.

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It hit me more directly recently because both my wife and I lost parents. Going through all the leftover stuff got me thinking about my own stuff. Now when I look in the nooks and crannies of my life all I see is stuff my children will be...