It's All Too Much, and other assorted chaos
A few quick items from Chez Green, Blue, Brown:
- Four out of five household members surveyed feel like dog doo. Fevers all around! Yay!
- Speaking of dog doo... 30 days until Amelia gets her service dog. We are officially getting excited at this point. We should find out who her dog will be in just a few short weeks, so stay tuned.
- Ten years of marriage. Lori says that means only 40 more to go until she can dump me.
- If you're ever getting ready to move and/or declutter, I recommend the book, It's All Too Much, by Peter Walsh. It's a literary classic, on par with the great works of - no wait. What I meant to say is it's got some very helpful ideas about how to decide what to keep and what to get rid of. And how to keep from getting right back into the same trap.
I can't really pull off a full book review because a fair bit of it wasn't relevant to me, but there are some recurring themes that I found helpful while cleaning out the basement, the garage, the barn, the closets, the cabinets, etc.
What's the point of keeping something for sentimental reasons if it's just going to sit in a box in the attic? Give it an honored place in your life, or get rid of it. The memories don't go away. And make sure you're making good memories TODAY too.
What good is a hobby if it's really just an ever-expanding blob of accessories, materials, and tools that's grown to the point of being discouraging rather than enjoyable? Give your hobby a finite amount of space, organize it, and forget about "someday" projects. If you fill the allotted space, then you can't bring in anything new without getting rid of something first.
If you're keeping something just because you spent "good" money on it, get rid of it. Instead of letting it gather dust, let somebody else get the good out of it. That money's never coming back anyway. It's long gone.
Stuff costs money. Stuff takes space, which also costs money. And a lot of stuff loses a good bit of value the moment you buy it. So if you're not actively using it or enjoying it, it's a triple-whammy financially. Throw in the psychological weight of just having it sit there, inert and unloved. (Then if you want to expand on the book's ideas, throw in the embodied energy, the resources consumed, the pollutants, etc...)
It's not what you own that determines your happiness. It's what you do with your time.
- I thought I had a couple more items for this post, but I've lost them now. I need to declutter my brain I guess....
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Labels: ramblings
posted by e4 @ 11/01/2009 09:26:00 PM
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comments
4 Comments:
I'm not a "keeper" (in the stuff-sense, I mean, though I suppose in the other sense that's entirely a matter of personal opinion), but yes, I've had a lot of moments of "But I spent so much on this!" Thanks for the ice-water-in-the-face... that stuff needs to go too!
good luck battling dog doo... and clutter. i like the premise of de-cluttering. my current problem is that i'm not tripping over things, or moving, so it's not 'urgent'. need to do a little purge every week...
Yay for Amelia getting her dog!!!!
Here's the rub: voluntary simplicity is only good insomuch as it does not cost you. For example, my mother throws away EVERYTHING. No kidding, if it's there, it's pitch-able. Bag of yarn? Goodwill! And then six months later she says, "I need blue yarn for a project for my camper..." and then she's off buying blue yarn.
I've been reading about declutter and simplifying for YEARS... but it has a very different meaning to me (a homeschooling, homesteading survivalist mom of FIVE) than it does to, say a yuppie apartment-dwelling couple, or even a McMansion dwelling, two-income family with 2.5 kids.
It's a fine line, my friend.
PS: I'm almost caught up to 2010. But aside from hanging a hay rack, this Saturday afternoon is a total bust. LoL!!
-aNNa
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