In 6 years people manage to accumulate a lot of stuff – especially me. My Mom never throws away stuff “just in case” and I sadly inherited this little vice. I filled book shelve after book shelve, I gathered huge amounts of paperwork and an abundance of items with no use whatsoever seemed to pop up in my flat every day. After 6 years I ran out of space in my 2 room flat. No wonder that people don’t want to move if they have to move all this stuff that they actually don’t need! At this point in my life I made a cut and started from scratch! I sold or gave away my furniture, I threw away a lot of stuff and I stored some of the stuff at my Dad’s place. Then I left the country with a car load full of stuff. Nowadays I think I even should have thrown out more!
There is a good feeling connected to getting rid of unnecessary belongings. In Germany we have a saying: Property creates duty. You can’t just dump your stuff everywhere and if your dog bites someone you will get in trouble. You can’t just leave your landlord to deal with the crap you left him, you will have to pay! Every item you own is like something you carry on your back. What if it gets stolen? What if something breaks? What if you lose everything in a hurricane? It’s not a very good feeling to have all your belongings sitting on your back wherever you go, is it? The reason why I decided to make a cut and get rid of 95% of my stuff was rather external in my case: Rent prices in England are insane and additionally I’m not really sure whether I really want to stay in England forever. Bringing all my stuff to England would have been too expensive and too risky!
In the last year I moved house once from one student accommodation into another. Both of them were up on a hill and I had to carry my stuff all the way down the hill and then up again. I was moving from top floor to top floor and you can’t imagine how I hated those stairs! My arms and shoulders were hurting for days after the move! Property is awful! It all sits there and waits for you to move out and then it becomes really annoying! When I had to move out of student accommodation at the end of the year I actually chose my summer storage so that there would be movers collecting and redelivering my belongings, because I just couldn’t deal with the thought of carrying all this stuff around again!
Just a few days before the movers came I had two dreams and neither of them was very encouraging. In one of them my movers didn’t show up and it seemed as if I was forced to stay in England instead of going home for a two week holiday. The other one might seem even worse for some of you: In this one the company was a scam and they stole all my stuff! Now guess what happened in my dreams? In the first one I just gave away all my stuff and went to Germany anyway and in the second one I was even happy to get rid of all this stuff! Well, what does that say about my subconscious?
Some of my friends didn’t leave their home town because they couldn’t afford to move all their stuff! Another friend of mine was planning on coming to England for 10 years now. Everytime he tries to leave, something binds him to Germany: first it was his cat, later his stuff, now his job. How can you be free if your bound to a place? How can you be free if people, belongings, jobs or houses don’t make it easy for you to leave? For me getting rid of all my stuff was very costly. I mostly couldn’t sell my furniture, so I ended up giving it away for free. If I come back to Germany I only have a bed, a fridge and a few shelves that somehow ended up in my Dad’s place. Everything else I will have to buy again. Making this kind of cut isn’t easy, but I assure you, it was a very good decision!
This summer I’m staying in York for a summer research project and I literally have nothing but my clothes, my computer and my tango shoes! No stereo, no midi keyboard, no books, no pots and pans and I even had to buy duvet, pillow and towel when I arrived. It is a very interesting experience and even though I miss having my stereo and I would prefer to use my own pots and pans it still works out: I don’t need these things! There is a library here and my house mates have pots and pans, so I’m alright to survive with as little as that here! It shows that I could even get rid of more of my stuff and still be alright! With a suitcase and a little handluggage backpack I have everything I need to survive! I still have a little more than I would happily carry around with me, but with a little optimization I could just leave at any point and go to any place. It gives me the feeling of freedom!
Think about your belongings. What would happen if you would be robbed tomorrow and all the little things that make your life a little easier would disappear? Electric dishwasher, washing machine, TV, printer, blender? What is essential and what is just “good to have”? How threatening does it feel to lose everything? Would you be happy like me in my dream? Or would you have a breakdown and try to get all these things back? What about all the books you haven’t read in years or the CDs you haven’t listened to in ages?
The question is: Do you feel trapped? If you do, then you might be able to feel less so if you sell or give away some of the non-essentials. Give yourself some breathing space and think about the really important things! It is important to feel reasonably free, because human beings like to have space to grow!
Even if you like all your belongings and don’t feel trapped at all: What would happen to you if you would lose all that? If all these things are essential for the happiness in your life, make sure that you have a plan how to get these things back, if something unexpected (e.g. a hurricane or a flooding) happens. I always have enough money in my bank account to buy my essentials again, which gives me the feeling of safety!
Be conscious about what is important to you and you will feel more freedom, more safety and above all more self-assured!
0 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.