Peg Herring's Blog - Posts Tagged "things"
Shedding Stuff
It's hard to do, harder for some than others. We see shows on TV like "Hoarders" and think, "Glad I'm not like them." But maybe we are.
I spoke with a woman yesterday who has two storage facilities full of stuff, a room in her son's house is stacked to the ceiling, and her own house consists of pathways banked by stuff. She and her husband are building a pole barn to hold more stuff.
Another friend complains that her husband can't stop buying stuff. His passion is old machinery, so they have a dozen ancient tractors, a few bulldozers, an array of farm equipment, and a host of smaller pieces. None of them work, which doesn't matter, because the husband is not a farmer anyway. He just likes owning stuff.
My mother was a great one for stuff. An elementary teacher, she saved things for arts and crafts: empty plastic bowls, used compacts, egg crates, et cetera. When she retired and no longer needed the items, they remained in her basement, gathering dust, getting damp, and taking up space. After her death, it all went into the trash.
So why do people keep stuff they don't need? Theories abound. The fear that we might need it at some point in the future. The fact that many of us have extra space, so there isn't a great need to downsize possessions. The belief that someone, hopefully our children, will be thrilled to inherit our junk when we're gone.
People hire people to come in and help them get rid of junk. TV shows are formed around clutter and getting rid of it. Magazines suggest weird stunts like swap meets where people get together and trade junk. And garage sales, where we actaully pay money for other people's junk. How about simply garnering the self-discipline to look at what you own and sort it into three categories: essentials that you keep, decent stuff that you give to charity, and junk that you jettison, hopefully in an environmentally responsible way. Is that so hard?
I spoke with a woman yesterday who has two storage facilities full of stuff, a room in her son's house is stacked to the ceiling, and her own house consists of pathways banked by stuff. She and her husband are building a pole barn to hold more stuff.
Another friend complains that her husband can't stop buying stuff. His passion is old machinery, so they have a dozen ancient tractors, a few bulldozers, an array of farm equipment, and a host of smaller pieces. None of them work, which doesn't matter, because the husband is not a farmer anyway. He just likes owning stuff.
My mother was a great one for stuff. An elementary teacher, she saved things for arts and crafts: empty plastic bowls, used compacts, egg crates, et cetera. When she retired and no longer needed the items, they remained in her basement, gathering dust, getting damp, and taking up space. After her death, it all went into the trash.
So why do people keep stuff they don't need? Theories abound. The fear that we might need it at some point in the future. The fact that many of us have extra space, so there isn't a great need to downsize possessions. The belief that someone, hopefully our children, will be thrilled to inherit our junk when we're gone.
People hire people to come in and help them get rid of junk. TV shows are formed around clutter and getting rid of it. Magazines suggest weird stunts like swap meets where people get together and trade junk. And garage sales, where we actaully pay money for other people's junk. How about simply garnering the self-discipline to look at what you own and sort it into three categories: essentials that you keep, decent stuff that you give to charity, and junk that you jettison, hopefully in an environmentally responsible way. Is that so hard?
