Wow! Brilliant article... This might be a life-long task for me ;-) but imagine if it just shifted and suddenly it wasnt so difficult anymore... Pondering each artifact in my apartment, I’d ask simple questions like, Does this thing add value to my life? I learned that once you gain momentum, once you feel the benefits of removing the clutter from your life, embracing minimalism gets easier by the day. The more you do it, the freer and happier and lighter you feel, the more you want to throw overboard. A few shirts leads to half a closet. A few DVDs leads to deep-sixing almost an entire library of discs. A few decorative items leads to junk drawers who shed their adjective. It’s a beautiful cycle. The more action you take, the more you want to take action. [...] You see, our televisions would have us believe there’s a battle being fought on the consumption continuum, a battle between messy hoarders on one side and spruce organizers on the other. And from our couches it’s hard to see who’s winning. I’d like to posit, however, that these two sides are actually working together, colluding to achieve the same thing: the accumulation of more stuff. One side—the hoarders—does so overtly, leaving everything out in the open, making them easy targets to sneer at. But the other side—the sneaky organizers—are more covert, more systematic, when it comes to the accumulation of stuff. Whether our homes are strewn with wall-to-wall junk or we have a color-coded and alphabetized methodology to camouflage our mess, we’re still not dealing with the real problem. No matter how organized we are, we must continue to care for the stuff we organize, sorting and cleaning our meticulously structured belongings. When we get rid of the superabundance of stuff, however, we can make room for life’s more important aspects. I can now spend my day focusing on that which is truly important—health, relationships, writing—instead of re-reorganizing my basement. Once the excess stuff is out of the way, staying organized is much easier anyway; it’s like getting organized without the stress of actual organizing. It took confessing to myself that I was but a well-organized hoarder before I took action and really started removing the surplus stuff from my world. When I got rid of the majority of my possessions, I was compelled to ask questions I wasn’t prepared for: When did I give so much meaning to material possessions? What is truly important in life? Why am I discontented? Who is the person I want to become? How will I define my own success? [...] Over time, situations will change. They always do. So I’m forced to ask the same important question over and over again: Does this thing add value to my life? But I dont just ask this question about material possessions. Stuff was just the start. I ask it too in regard to relationships, Internet consumption, food, and more. I constantly ask because circumstances constantly change. Just because something adds value today, that doesnt mean it will necessarily add value tomorrow. So I keep asking, and I adjust accordingly.
Posted on: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:24:57 +0000
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