I’ve been struggling—a lot—with having a lot and wanting more. I tried watching a documentary about minimalism on Netflix, one called Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things. I was five minutes deep when I realized all the people that were being interviewed already had it all—millionaires, entrepreneurs who had made their fortune and could afford to project an image of “less”. As a young woman, a student, and an artist who is still trying to find her own footing, I could not relate to their stories. Stuck somewhere in between wanting more, a grand lifestyle full of travel and adventure, and wanting to simplify my life to free myself from anxieties that come with modern living—these conflicting desires have been a point of contention.

This photo set helped me express a type of disgust that comes from feeling this way, a disgust I wish I could spew out like a ball of yarn. Millennials like me can relate to that sentiment. It’s something that comes up in conversations with my friends almost every day. I’m lucky to be surrounded by creative individuals with big ideas and strong drives to pursue them, but I can see it in their eyes, too: how can we learn to enjoy the moment without feeling dissatisfied about the position we hold in the world? In an age of influencers, followers, and simultaneous rejection of materialism, we try to purge the parts of us that rot us from the inside so they won’t weigh us down on the path to understand what it is inside of us that’s here to stay and which parts have been fed to us along the way.