Sometimes decluttering is as simple as tossing out the trash.
Usually, it’s much more difficult.
We keep things like gifts, mementos from old relationships, life-changing books (or cds, or college courses,) or clothing that will fit when we lose weight. We save the first outfit our child wore, things willed to us by loved ones, business materials we thought would launch us into a new life.
In other words, letting go of the “thing” is not just about letting go of the thing, it’s about letting go of a cherished idea.
That is infinitely more difficult to do! 🙂
So should we keep all those mementos forever? What’s the cost of hanging onto those cherished ideas?
A few things: we lose time, not being able to find the socks we are looking for (for example) in the mounds of underwear and shirts.
There’s expense…possibly being forced to buy more socks (or tools, or spices) because we can’t find the ones we already own.
There’s the expense of storing too much stuff…perhaps even adding rooms, sheds, or rental units to house the excess . That gets expensive! So here’s a question for you:
Could you live in a smaller home if you got rid of excess junk?
If you lived in a smaller home, would your homeowner’s insurance be lower? What about your power bill? Your taxes? Might you be able to spend less time cleaning? A house with less clutter can be cleaned much faster, even if the square footage remains the same. How much time could you save?
And the big one:
Could you possibly work less if your home and your bills were smaller?
What possibilities does that open?
Is it possible that you would live a freer, happier life if we only scale back?
Hold that thought a second.
If we take these actions:
1. Review possessions and toss or sell anything that is not extremely useful or incredibly beautiful.
2. Reduce our home size.
And then we can:
1. Work less and
2. Clean less, saving TIME, that glorious thing that nobody has enough of.
What would you do with the additional time? Would you visit your aging relatives more? Would you send yourself back to school? Is there a volunteer work you’d like to be more involved in? Could you use more exercise? Would you hold more dinner parties? Travel more? Spend more time hiking? Gardening? Dancing? Playing with your dog? Reading?
Whatever you want to do, minimizing your possessions could help you do it.
Is it worth working full time the rest of your life to maintain your collection of beanie babies? You decide.
Simply Betsy 