It's hard to get rid of things, even harder to not acquire them in the first place. Perhaps that's because the new thing can only be seen as a positive change - its acquirer blind to any down sides. Dependencies form in strange ways. Even if it's probably bad for you and everything around you, it still manages to root itself into the new environment. You almost have to kill it to get rid of it. It's like you need the thing you don't need in order to realize you don't need it. Maybe that's why the wealthy are generally unhappy? They have the thing, realize they don't need it, and yet, cannot get rid of it. They probably can get rid of it, actually, they just choose not to for one reason or another, and it's also a hard decision to make in the first place. Why get rid of something when it can be kept around? We must have acquired it for some reason or another, right? To enhance our existence. To fix an already existing problem we've been having with something else we've acquired? Could be anything, really, we tend not to keep track of this stuff do we? Maybe we should. Maybe paying conscious attention to what we need, and what we do not need is an essential daily exercise.