Rita Wilkins Learned to Live Smaller So Her Life Could Feel Bigger
Surrounded by space and success, Rita Wilkins still felt confined. Her radical midlife downsizing reveals what happens when you choose less on purpose.
Many of us in midlife were conditioned from early on that success has to look like expansion.
A bigger house. A fuller calendar. An expanding business. More furniture, more commitments, more proof that we’ve made it. We spend decades climbing, collecting, curating a life that signals stability and achievement.
And then one day, often after the kids are grown or the career has peaked, we look around and wonder why it feels so… tight.
Maybe not financially or socially. But tight in the chest.
If you’ve ever stood in a beautiful home and still felt strangely confined, you’re not alone.
That’s where Rita Wilkins found herself and why she decided to make a big change.
Right On Time is our weekly series of lessons in courage, clarity, and change for those rewriting their story — in two minutes or less.
Rita was a successful interior designer, living in a 5,000-square-foot home as an empty nester. By most standards, she had done everything right.
But a visit to see her son in West Africa shifted something. There, she saw people living with far less space and far fewer possessions, yet with visible joy, connection, and gratitude.
Coming home, the contrast hit hard.
Her house suddenly felt heavy. Expensive to maintain. Emotionally crowded. So she did something many of us only fantasize about: she downsized to under 900 square feet and gave away most of what she owned.
Less house to clean. Fewer things to insure. Fewer subtle pressures to impress.
And as that square footage around her was shrinking, Rita found that her life began to expand in many other ways that mattered more to her now.
More time for relationships. More energy for meaningful work. A clearer sense of who she was without the big lifestyle wrapped around her.
ICYMI:
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I think about this often as we talk about building more sovereign, location-independent lives. We assume we need to scale up, to save up, before we can step out.
What if the opposite is true?
What if living smaller — financially, physically, socially — is what creates the space to move freely?
If your life feels too full but somehow still not big enough for who you’re becoming, sit with that for a few minutes.
What’s actually taking up space?
What are you maintaining that no longer feels like you?
What are you afraid would happen if you let some of it go?
For Rita, it was square footage and possessions. For you, it might be a title. A social circle. A set of expectations you outgrew five years ago.
The things that make our lives look impressive from the outside can quietly shrink us on the inside.
Sometimes the bravest move isn’t adding more. It’s releasing just enough to finally breathe.
✌🏻 Miranda
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As a soon to be empty nester, I liked the “smaller is freer” message throughout this post. Ty.
Smaller/less is very liberating...and so is the process that gets you there.