We Don’t Have to Own Things to Enjoy Them

This morning I’m listening to a waterfall outside my window.

The sound is constant and reassuring. Somewhere beyond it, birds are singing. The hills are green, the air smells faintly of rain, and the world feels peaceful in a way that is becoming increasingly rare.

None of it belongs to me.

And yet I get to enjoy all of it.

That thought has been returning to me a lot lately.

For most of my life, I have worked hard to acquire things. Houses. Possessions. Achievements. Experiences. Like many people, I assumed that ownership was somehow connected to enjoyment. That if something mattered, it ought to belong to me.

But the older I get, the less convinced I am.

In fact, I have begun to notice that ownership often comes with a hidden weight. Every possession requires attention. Every house requires maintenance. Every object asks to be stored, cleaned, repaired, insured or eventually disposed of.

What we gain in ownership, we sometimes lose in freedom.

Recently, I found myself thinking about the beautiful Victorian villa I once owned overlooking Loch Long near Dunoon in the Scottish Highlands. It was, without question, the most beautiful house I have ever lived in. Mountains framed the water. A paddle steamer passed along the loch occasionally. Whales and porpoises sometimes visited. My bedroom window seemed to hold a painting that mesmerised from dawn till dusk.

Today it belongs to somebody else.

And strangely, that feels perfectly right.

The beauty of that place was never dependent on my ownership of it. The mountains are still there. The water still catches the evening light. The house continues its life under the care of new custodians.

What remains with me is the experience.

If I close my eyes, I can still walk through those rooms. I can still remember the view from the window and the feeling of waking up to that landscape each morning. The memory is no less valuable because I no longer possess the building.

If anything, it feels lighter.

Perhaps that is because experiences are easier to carry than possessions.

A memory takes up no storage space. It requires no maintenance. It asks for nothing except to be remembered from time to time.

The Stoics understood something of this. They encouraged people to appreciate what they had while recognising that nothing truly belongs to us forever. Houses change hands. Possessions break. Circumstances shift. Even our own bodies are only on loan for a while.

That sounds bleak until you look at it another way.

If nothing lasts forever, then perhaps the purpose was never ownership in the first place. Perhaps the purpose was simply to experience it fully while it was here.

To enjoy the house.

To walk the mountain path.

To listen to the waterfall.

To share time with people we care about.

Then, when the moment passes, to let it pass with gratitude rather than cling to it.

More and more, I find myself drawn towards simplicity. Fewer possessions. Fewer obligations. Less carrying.

Not because I value life less, but because I value it more.