Comfort or Clutter? The Art of Getting Rid of Stuff.
We generally like stuff. But is our stuff needed, necessary, or is it just too hard to ditch? Is it keeping us from what we could have if we got rid of it?
Who is rich? He that rejoices in his portion
~Benjamin Franklin
What do you have that you have not received?
~1 Cor 4:7
He who needs riches least, enjoys riches most
~ Epicurus
Your stuff is valueless. What you acquire over a lifetime is essentially “worthless”
Strong word, right?
Let me explain.
Years ago I distinctly remember helping my dad downsize. My mom had recently passed away, and he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of any of her stuff - it felt like he was getting rid of her, of her memory. I remember taking stuff they had to various thrift stores with the hopes of getting some value for them. ANYTHING would have been great! I remember taking some of my dad’s vinyl records into a used record store that sold vintage phonographs with the intent of getting great money for these valuable heirlooms. He offered me $.05/per record. OMG! I think it cost me $.10 to actually get out of my car and walk in there! I was already in the hole!
So, after I had exhausted all possibilities of actually getting any money for this stuff, I went to Goodwill to give it away and THEY WOULDN’T TAKE IT! It wasn’t even good enough, valuable enough for Goodwill to receive it FOR FREE and me TAKING IT TO THEM!! At the very end, I ended up taking most all of my mom and dad’s stuff to the dump - the stuff they valued, treasured, stuff that meant something to them, stuff they moved all around the country. Stuff that defined them, made them happy, was in the end - just garbage!
Lesson learned: to a thrift store owner, or an employee of Goodwill, or even friends - my parents valuable stuff was basically worth nothing. Stuff they paid a lot of money for.
For the record, I think this also applies to my stuff. And your stuff.
CAVEAT: our stuff does have value - you CAN sell it. It is possible. Thrift stores wouldn’t be thrift stores without buying people’s stuff.
But if you were to die today - can you take it with you? Therefore, your stuff only has “value” to you right now, in the form of convenience, comfort, memories and utility. But it has NO VALUE if you move on, or into, a new place.
Couple of key takeaways:
Something only has value in this life if someone else will pay for it. The true value of it is based on the accepted/negotiated price. If you are selling, it’s not based on what YOU think it is worth, it is based SOLELY on what someone else will pay for it. If you are starving and Ι οffer to sell you a hamburger or gold - what will you buy? What has value at that moment?
In reality, my stuff doesn’t define who I am because it is apart from me. But, in a strange way, I can certainly think it does. If I own and drive a Bentley car, I could have thoughts about it in ways that I believe define me or could define me, but in reality that car is not me. It can, however, define my evolution of my own personal value, it could define how I think about me.
Finally, I’ve noticed that when we move on, move out, move to a new place, we need to get rid of stuff because our stuff will now no longer fit or be appropriate in the new place. Usually. When I helped my dad downsize, we had to get rid a of almost all of his stuff in order to live and function in the new place. It was hard and difficult, but afterward (and I asked him) he didn’t miss the stuff. Isn’t that interesting??!! We think the stuff is “us”, but in the end it isn’t. And when jettisoned, we almost always feel better, lighter, more free.
So, what then should we do with our stuff? How should we think about it?
CONTENTMENT OR CONFUSION?
Material wealth is not bad in and of itself. Material wealth acquired beyond what is necessary, desired to a certain degree and wanted is usually a trap.
Usually.
It is when materialism becomes the sole focus, the drive of one’s life that something seems to become off-kilter, out of balance. It weighs one down, it requires effort to keep in condition, in working order.
Ironically, from the Wisdom literature of the world including some deep thinkers, here are some thoughts:
In the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) the patriarchs all became very wealthy men who acquired wealth through various means. Wealth wasn’t bad, it was something to be pursued. From a Jewish perspective, we are to enjoy life. In fact, we will be held accountable by God if we didn’t partake in all the things He (God) has provided for us to enjoy. When God made the world, He called it “good”. Life is good, things on this earth are good, we are to appreciate them and thank God for them.
In the Christian scriptures (the New Testament) Jesus admonishes his followers to leave everything and follow him - the rich young ruler was a good example. Men and women of the Secular Franciscan Order take this literally by taking a vow of poverty. Paul notes that riches that are worth acquiring are found in the life of the world to come, not in this life. From a Christian perspective, this life is a springboard to the next one. This world is passing away so put your efforts into something that doesn’t pass away.
The Buddhist perspective, generally, is that the accumulation of wealth is good and praiseworthy if the wealth is accumulated in rightful ways and it is utilized for the good for oneself and others. Of course, the phrase “rightful ways” is subject to interpretation. But we can generally get the picture.
The Muslim perspective, generally speaking, looks at wealth as something to be enjoyed but not allowed to become the sole focus. Wealth is not to be achieved by doing wrong (Quran 4:29), and people are to give liberally to the poor and needy (Quran 2:177, 261).
Stuff can bring a sense of blessing. I know personally how driving a nice car can make one think differently about oneself. How we think about ourselves many times is rooted in how we had things growing up. If our parents struggled, if we didn’t have versus what we noticed others did have - that does have an affect.
Yet, stuff can be acquired and happiness still not achieved. You can have many houses, many cars, tons of money and be very unhappy.
THE MINIMALIST
I am not advocating this per say, but minimalism is very interesting and deserves our attention as a possible way of approaching life, even to a lesser degree. An interesting take on the idea of living with less is by three of the most well-known minimalists Joshua Fields Millburn, T.K. Coleman, and Ryan Nicodemus, who can be found here. What is so compelling about these guys is their relentless pursuit of less, the downsizing of all that isn’t important, and the redirecting of their interests away from stuff and towards experiences. Here is a poem from their website:
Influence, wealth, and status are all hapless hunts.
Getting more does not make you successful.
Striving for more makes you excessful.
Excess is accompanied by restlessness, pain, and misery.Joshua Fields Millburn
It’s not that stuff isn’t bad, but acquisition of unnecessary stuff that comes from a overdeveloped sense of lack, or a desire to soothe an innate feeling of being less because you have less - that is something to be avoided.
BUT WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO AND BE?
One of the things that drives me crazy is throwing away things that, as I develop new interests, have to then turn around and buy again. This is especially true on a farm. Farmers are notorious for never throwing anything away, because almost anything and everything can be used for something, some repair, some key aspect of a new building project at some point - and really, in my experience, that “one point” can be thirty years down the road.
However, one can take this approach taken by most farmers, never go through a necessary decluttering, and end up buried in stuff. When we moved off our farm years ago, we had to downsize dramatically. We had acquired a lot of stuff. That’s what farmers do and the process to sell, barter, give away stuff was actually quite liberating. It was like washing off an old life to embrace a totally new life that we were moving into.
This is a plug for the minimalists - less is usually more.
But in our case, we no longer were farmers, we were something else. And that “something else” didn’t require stuff like before.
This is a key point I want to make: stuff in and of itself can be good, bad or good-ish or bad-ish. However, when you move into a new place, be it a new house, new country, new state, new church, new whatever…
GET RID OF THE OLD, EMBRACE THE NEW!
OUR STUFF CAN BE MENTAL OR EVEN SPIRITUAL. CAN WE LET IT GO?
Stuff isn’t just limited to material goods. Ways of thinking and perspectives on spirituality can be acquired and built up over time. Usually, at some point, as one matures, grows and develops, a mental or spiritual decluttering can be extremely helpful. This is usually the case when one is introduced to new ways of thinking, or find oneself in a completely new space spiritually, be this religious or otherwise.
Spiritual decluttering is not limited to traditional religious practice. Difficult events can move one to atheism because of an event where the God one believed in didn’t come through in expected fashion. Difficult events can lead one to a belief in God because certain did happen that transformed one’s thinking, perspective, approach to life. The question is: what to do with the former belief system? Do we let it all go, or some of it go? I question holding on to the old, because it hampers the development of the new.
I’ve noticed this: when I’ve found my self in a new place spiritually, the old wasn’t valuable in the way it was before. It was valuable in and of itself, but not to me the same way. I found that I had made it valuable in my mind because it meant something to me. Once though, as I progressed in my own development, I had to leave behind the old to embrace the new. In biblical terms, there are numerous examples but here are three.
Manna that fed the Israelites in the wilderness was good for only one day. You went out and collected fresh manna each day. When the Israelites came into the land of Canaan, there was no more manna they had to find new ways to eat.
When Jesus, Peter, John and James were on the Mount of Transfiguration, after Jesus was seen transfigured with Elijah and Moses, Peter wanted to build three tabernacles. In essence, to stay there. Jesus didn’t comply, and moved on. When we have transformation spiritual experiences, we want to stay there. But God/Jesus through various means want us to move on.
The parable of the pearl of great price: if you find it, you sell all for that pearl. What is unstated but implied is that when you find the next pearl, you sell all and buy that pearl.
THE THOUGHT TO THINK
Therefore, here is the thought to think: does your current “stuff” define you in any way shape or form? Think long and hard about this - there is no right answer but to get the most out of this thought we must be ruthless in our objectivity.
Your “stuff” can be physical stuff, or mental stuff, or even spiritual stuff.
If you were to move, if you were forced to move, what stuff would you get rid of. What should you keep?
Does having a lot of stuff comfort you, has “stuff” become something that gives you a sense of being and belonging on this earth, whereas getting rid of stuff would untether your groundedness and make you feel disconnected in someway?
Usually, when stuff is gotten rid of, that initial disconnectedness is uncomfortable, but as with everything, a “new place” will replace the “old place” and you’ll become very comfortable with the new.
Would you benefit from a massive declutter - or would that be too difficult? I’ve gone around and picked up things and thought to myself “I’m going to take this to Goodwill”, or “I’m going to sell this”. I then observe my thoughts. Invariably, I don’t want to get rid of it because of a good memory. I don’t think that is bad. But I do think: would this free me in some way though. Is there something else that would help my memory without this thing that takes up space, requires me to keep it up, requires me to clean it, requires my precious time to think about it.
If you really think about it in terms of our desire for a “home”, a place of security and comfort - it is rather naive to think we are “safe” in any sort of way. We are all on a spinning ball rotating at 1,670 miles per hour that is traveling around a star that could explode at any given time at speeds of around 67,000 miles per hour. If our “home” (earth) were to stop spinning, we would experience winds up to over 200mph, thus destroying everything on earth - for sure anything man-made. We would all die. NOTHING is permanent, nothing is “grounded”, we are all LUCKY to be ALIVE, really. But we long for security.
And yet, our stuff gives us meaning, comfort, and a sense of roundedness - or it can. Question this: should it?
And would we be happier if we got rid of it?
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