Who owns who?
Do you own a lot of stuff? OR does your stuff own you?
I’m reading one of the best books I’ve read in a long time, written by two minimalists, friends of my daughter. She met them while writing for the Dayton newspaper a couple of years ago. Recently she sent me their latest book Everything That Remains.
Wow ! What an eye opener. And all this time I thought I was a “collector” when really I’m just a glorified hoarder !
What is a minimalist? In short – someone who pares down what he owns to just what is required or essential in his/her life, according to Webster’s Dictionary.
According to Josh Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, its someone who by ridding oneself off all the anchors that are holding him/her back from life, not only the material possessions, but debt, bad relationships, wrong careers – stuff that occupies unnecessary physical and mental space in one’s life.
Look around you. How much can you see from where you are sitting right now that is just taking up space, sitting where it is because you don’t really have a designated spot for it, something that you are keeping “just in case” you might need it ? ThoseEXTRA connecting cables lying on the desk for the 15 electronic gadgets you need to recharge, just in case you lose one…..Books you haven’t opened or looked at for years (my biggie here), unopened junk mail, catalogues, drinking glasses, magazines, collectables you haven’t dusted in 3 months but feel guilty about not dusty. I’m betting you can come up with at least 6 things you could throw out and be next month not remember you owned them or at least not miss them.
How many cleaning products do you have under your sink or in a closet? How many hygiene products, lotions, potions, moisturizers, cleansers, exfoliates? How many cold products, cough medicines? Sheet sets, towels, blankets, winter coats, all filling up closets. I just counted 8 king sized sheet sets in my closet. I have ONE kind sized bed. I can only use one at a time ! Why do I need 8 ? Even if I didn’t want to wash the same one and put it back on the bed every week I could just have 2 and rotate them. But I have 8. Towels? There are two of us living her on a regular basis. I have over 20 towels stacked on shelves in the bathroom and in a closet ! Why???? Its not like I don’t do laundry every week and reuse the same ones I put in the laundry. Some of these haven’t been used in two years. But – I might need them some day, when the towel industry goes bankrupt and the ones I’m currently using so “just in case”, I’m holding on to them.
Take this test. It’s painless. Get a couple of empty boxes. Pick one cupboard or closet and take everything out of it and put all of it into the boxes. Close them and put them in another room. Over the next 30 days see how many things you need to take out of the box. Guess what – these were the things in that closet that you need. The rest of it? Just in Case stuff. One of the points made in the book is most everything we own we can go replace within 20 miles or 20 minutes of where we live for under $20. Of course I’m not talking furniture or major appliances here but those aren’t the things that comprise most of our possessions. Try it. I’m starting with the upstairs hall closet. If this works the way I think it might I’ll be rid of my storage locker a month from now. Let me know how this works out. I’ll keep you updated.
If you want to read more about this, and I suggest everyone at least give paring down a thought, go to TheMinimalists.com.
What to do with the stuff you decide you can live without? The GoodWill and other charities will gladly take them and guess what? You get a tax break for a “charitable contribution. There are people out in our world, the very city where you live that don’t even have one sheet or one towel that would gladly use one of the 20 in your closet that you aren’t using.
Thing about it.