The other day, I blogged about Tammy Strobel who was inspired by Dave Bruno’s “The 100 Thing Challenge.”
We as Americans love to have more. The more the better. Think of the old saying, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” Actually, he who dies with the most toys leaves a lot of clutter behind for his family to go through.
Bruno started to realize that your stuff can consume you and came up with “The 100 thing Challenge.” Call him a minimalist, but Bruno and his blog about his 100 things has a lot of followers.
Now I know I will never be able to cut down to just 100 items. But, I am willing to cut down quite a bit. Seriously. The time is now before my husband retires and we have to face moving again with all this junk we don’t need.
Some of the reasons Bruno mentioned that we hold on to things certainly resonated with me. He wrote in his blog that many of us don’t let go of stuff because it would be wasteful to get rid of it. Guilty. I guess something was planted deep inside by a grandmother who went through both the Great Depression and World War II that I shouldn’t be wasteful. But, Bruno points out that to get things we don’t need in the first place is wasteful.
Point number two is that I might need it one day. This reasoning I know I got from my father. He has a storage shed full of stuff he “might need one day.” Only problem is that he has so many things he “might” need one day, he couldn’t find that one thing if he did need it from all the other things. And yes, I know the minute I get rid of something, I will probably need it, but I have to stop thinking like that.
I was proud of myself that I am actually working on Bruno’s third point – “It has sentimental value.” Oh, this one gets me every time. I’ve lost a lot of people in my life – mother, stepmother, all four grandparents, etc. – and I tend to hang on to everything they owned that I have. But, I’ve learned I don’t have to. If you watch some of the cleaning reality shows, you will see that they tell you if you have something of sentimental value that you never use, take a picture of it and get rid of it. You will still have the pic, so you can see it and you can still feel good about passing it on to someone that might actually be able to use it.
I did that not too long ago. I took some pictures of things from my childhood that were just taking up space then got rid of them. And guess what? I not only survived, I haven’t needed any of the items or felt remorse for getting rid of them.
So I consider myself to be on my way. While I cannot commit to 100 things, I have pledge to try to spend 30 minutes a day decluttering and getting rid of stuff in my house.