A thought that I had last night as I tried to fall asleep was, I think it comes down to ownership. Considering all the stuff I have bought haphazardly over the years; I hate to think of how much time I have spent worried this thing might break, or what if the apartment caught on fire. Did I lock the door? Did I leave the oven on? I have noticed in recent years, a great deal of anxiety over the idea of coming home to find all my stuff and apartment magically whisked away. How much time and resources have I devoted and used to care for things that do nothing more than collect dust? Hats, pants, shoes still in the box. Papers, journals, from elementary school. I began to wonder how much all these things own me more than I in fact owning them. As someone who had to make a quick and ill-timed move (I talk about this move in my presentation Learning to fail)
I know how expensive it can be to have to ship boxes of books. At the time these were all things that I could not part with, and I was not in a state of rational thinking. But the idea that all these boxes of books had to be cared for. They had to be paid for. They had to be lugged from place to place. Thinking about this idea has me wondering how much I have that I might have completely forgotten about having. How often do we lose items that we forget in some junk drawer? Or the colored pencils go missing? Another case I am hopefully making in removing much of the clutter from my life is the idea of ownership. I want to own things, and not let those things own me. What items do I have tucked deep into the backs of my closets? What clothing items have I not worn in the past six months? What books were gifted or simply passed down to me, that I will never intend to read. What items do not carry their weight in my immediate life?
Considering the fact that I am the only one paying my rent and my bills, what value does this item have in the space it takes up? A toaster does not pay rent and does not contribute to the bills. Maybe a toaster is something you use every morning and you feel brings immense value to ensure the perfectly cooked slice of toast with butter or jam in the morning. Maybe it’s a coffee maker? Speaking personally, I am a coffee drinker and I greatly value having a coffee machine. This brings enough value and enjoyment to my life because it is something, I use every morning. It is pulled toward the front of the counter that it sits on. I think this is a great way to start thinking and evaluating the items you have in your own life. If you have to question where an item is in your home, it’s probably not something you use very often. Over the years, I know there are books and items of clothing that I am not aware of having.
The idea that I have these “Stowaways” in my life means I have clutter. I cannot tell you the titles of every book I own, and I cannot tell you the colors of every shirt I own. To me, this is a problem. The more that I look around, and the more that I evaluate the things I have, the more I feel it’s all unnecessary junk filling up my life. One of the things I am looking forward to the most, as I thin down the unwanted stowaways from life, is the idea that at some point all these things, and all this stuff started owning me. I look forward to taking control again, and demanding all things pull their own weight. To use the hackneyed metaphor of you being the captain of your own ship, it’s time I throw some things overboard.
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