the simple (and well considered) life

This always happens when I come home--I think I have all this time to relax and organize my life and spend time with my family. Then all of a sudden I have three days left and a whole mess of things to do.
Case in point: dealing with my clothes. Gathering all my clothes in one place for the first time since I left for college, I have reached the following conclusion: I have too many clothes. Corollary: clothes are a pain. I am thankful that I have enough clothes to be adequately (sometimes even attractively!) clothed, but I start to wonder when eight pairs of shoes is my bare minimum to be prepared for all wardrobe (and weather) eventualities. I'm inclined to believe monasticism had it right--a vow of poverty is the best way to reduce both hassle and the burden of possessions. Fashion, packing, and matching shoes become a non-issue when you're wearing the same thing every day.
I like to think that it's my year of LVC-induced "simple living" that's bringing about this change of attitude towards my possessions, but it's more likely that I'm just tired of carting my life around in a suitcase. 100+ pounds of luggage gets old after awhile.

Along similar "life value" lines, I stumbled across this article about twenty-somethings on facebook and it made me think. I fit nearly all the descriptions of this new "emergent adult" ("un­tethered to romantic partners or to permanent homes...avoiding commitments...forestalling the beginning of adult life." Check, check and check!) and it's kind of interesting to be a subject of sociological interest. I agree with the psychological nitpickers at the end of the article: I don't think emergent adulthood is a required step of psychological maturation; I'd say it's simply a cultural phenonmenon resulting from the optimism of the Millenial generation, enabled by the middle-class privilege retained from the baby boomer generation. That said, it's real and (I think) worth studying. I'd be interested to know what the experts, and eventually history, decide--is this emergent adulthood good or bad? Is it good to be financially independent? Undoubtedly. Is it good to do good in the world and seek a life goal, if that opportunity is available to you? I think so. The million dollar question: are the two mutually exclusive? As one stuck in it I'm not sure I'm the best one to judge. I certainly have gone the route of "seeking" instead of "growing up" per se, but I hope that doesn't mean it's not possible to do both.
It is a little bit of a blow to realize that in my apparently unorthodox life path, I am actually behaving like a predictable young adult of my time. So much for being unique and thinking out of the box. I guess it's okay to be on the gospel train if you're bound for glory.