New Years signifies the end of something, and beginning again with a clean slate. A clear calendar with no mistakes. January 1st can be a great starting line, a start date for things you have always wanted to do.
An organized home is not something taught in school. Organizing and the ability to discern clutter from usable goods is a life skill usually passed down from parents or other mentors in your life. If you had neither of these and from infancy you have always managed to keep everything well organize and shiny clean then you are a freak of nature and probably anything I say will be of little use to you. But read on if you wish.
...for me to claim ownership of something I simply must love it or love it's usefulness
Organizing is finding a place for everything and putting everything in it's place. Easier said than done but do-able. When I was younger I certainly was not the best housekeeper. Over time I have amassed tips and techniques that have slowly but surely transformed my home.
The main thing I needed to master was defining clutter. Is clutter something superfluous or something usable? Could I have clutter and still have organization. I believe the answer is yes and no. Clutter is a group of items gathered with no or little purpose. Clutter neither brings me usefulness nor enjoyment. That is not to say that anything without a purpose is clutter. Certainly not but for me to claim ownership of something I simply must love it or love it's usefulness.
Using the above definition we can classify clutter as just stuff. Our modern society loves stuff. Big stuff. Little stuff. Expensive stuff. Cheap stuff. In fact we love our stuff so much our economy is kept afloat by our continued desire to amass stuff.
When our desire to claim ownership grossly exceeds our need we call it hoarding. Hoarding is a growing phenomenon, something that happens behind closed doors, away from prying eyes. It is something I think everyone suffers from to a certain extent. We buy and buy and buy, getting rid of things we bought a year ago to make room for the stuff we bought today. The only difference between us and diagnosed hoarders is that hoarders never get rid of anything and just continue to add to the pile.
When I hear stories of compulsive hoarders I am struck by the poignancy of their plight. These people are just doing what the last century of marketing told us to do. Their homes with floor to ceiling piles of clothes never worn and gifts never given away is really a reflection of each and every one of us. We are a society of hoarders, collectors, and stuff savers.
Somehow we think this makes us affluent. Somewhere along the line we told ourselves this makes us the envy of the world.
One of the biggest lessons I have learned on this road to simplicity is that these things, these materials make us no better at our jobs or our relationships. They provide us with no more comfort than a rock. In fact these things only further our sheltering from those around us. Like protective padding, this stuff is really just cluttering up our heads even more than they do our homes.
Give you one guess what I am doing Jan 1st...
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