Thoreau isn't simply advising us to own fewer possessions—he's diagnosing a particular modern sickness where we mistake busyness for living. The repetition of "simplify" suggests something almost desperate, as though he's watching us drown in our own choices, each small obligation invisibly anchoring us down. What makes this urgent rather than preachy is his word "frittered"—not squandered grandly, but worn away in tiny increments, like coins disappearing into a dozen small purchases. Think of the person who keeps meaning to write a novel but spends their evenings managing email inboxes, scrolling subscriptions, and maintaining relationships that don't nourish them; Thoreau would recognize that their real problem isn't laziness but an architecture of living that has become hostile to anything substantial.