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I agree with Kondo, that we should only keep what we truly love. But in 2019, I’m this age of Amazon and online shopping, wouldn’t that be still way too much? We do tend to obsess about collecting the ephemera of our daily lives.  We live in a hyper-consumerist society. Every corner you turn there's an ad for something, a billboard promoting something, a coupon for 20% off, etc. There seems to always be a some kind of pressure to get something, to buy something, to add something to whatever it is that we already have.

I have resisted that for awhile. I don't own my condo, so I know that I will eventually move out and I LOATHE packing and moving. So I've tried to pace myself and have decided in the last years not to get too bogged down with too many things. Still, I cannot get to the point where my world is not understood through objects. Our lives become lives of hyper consumerism where our needs are packed back to us as aspiration. We are sold the idea of appetizing objects -stuff- tied to the experience they may bring. Take books, for example: they contain the experiences we want, so when Marie Kondo talks about maybe getting rid of some of those, we bristle. We want to own (and keep) them precisely because we want to repeat that experience.

I think that in what concerns our life, though, we find ourselves torn between the accumulation of what we have and a desire for an organized life. In this time of electronic, curated lives (think Instagram and the such), even though we tie what we have to who we are, we have decided that we want to project a more organized, attainable space and therefore more organized lives. Decluttering has become a goal in itself. It has gone from playing home with the Sims to actually having more compact spaces -think tiny houses- that are much more an idea of organization and decluttering than an actual goal for many people (because very few of us could actually live in a tiny house).  Following this trend, images have become the objects of the XXI century. Take for example the curating of our reading habits -good reads, for example- or the collection of images -pinterest- serve as inspiration, life-style window shopping: we consume vicariously the lives we want or aspire to.

We seem to try control our identities. At least I recognize that that's what I do. That's why Kondo's philosophy seems so attractive to me. Being intentional about what we want to keep, we feel more capable of reinventing ourselves: our aspiration is to live more authentically. Maybe that's my goal? Be more free by freeing myself of stuff? I don't know. The one thing I know is that I'm trying to be less tied to the material in order to feel.... more free?

XOXO

Comments

  1. I am the minimalist, my spouse is the pack rat. if something were to happen to him and I was left to my own devices, I would call in the local thrift store to take 95% of everything in this house. then I would move into a studio apartment.

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  2. I have a hard time with stuff. I hold onto things for seemingly no reason. Then at some point I toss them without a second thought. Now if I could just skip the middle part, I’d be better. Not perfect, but better. I have some old clothes, a lot of it with company logos that I haven’t worn in years. I don’t know whether to toss them or donate them. I’ve got to take the time to go through stuff and be better about it. Isn’t that what basements are for? To hide this stuff? 😎

    XOXO 👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨

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  3. Purge! I love to purge! And simplify. I've been tossing and chucking things I don't need for years. It feels great. After, there's room for more. Or nothing at all. Except for shoes. I can't seem to get rid of them. They just keep multiplying, like tribbles. And I don't mind that. The shoes, that is. Not the tribbles. But I digress.

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  4. I have a rule that I live by:

    "Want the things you have, don't have the things you want."

    The funny thing is, our house is overloaded with storage and so much of it is empty. We have a two car garage that can hold two cares; we have a full attic that is fully empty. I like having less; more gives me tsouris!

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  5. I am not an online shopper except for underwear and square cuts. You dont want to know how many....but everything else in my home has a story, means something to me or family heirlooms. I dont add much in over the years. I also rent.


    And I cant not stand ads every where. It's getting bad on the gram.

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  6. My husband says my favorite phrase in the English language is "pitch it". I can also say it in two other languages. He a pack rat, junk collector, etc...if it is flat, horizontal and stable, he puts crap on it. My last count was 28 old useless computer keyboards he found. He goes through the garbage can checking to see what I have thrown out. Get my drift????

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  7. I did go through a stage where I bought everything I wanted... now I have the pleasure of giving it all away.

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  8. @AnneMare: same, girl. Same.
    @Bae: even basements have a limit...
    @Walter: a man after my own heart! Shoes are ESSENTIAL.
    @Bob: and that should be the state of things!
    @Maddie: but square cuts ARE necessary! And the idea of keeping only things we love is exactly my point 😎
    @Jimmy: Lmaoooo oh dear. I’ve known people so seriously go through the garbage before is picked up. Seriously.
    @Dave: I think that’s the perfect balance: when giving things away is not an issue anymore.

    XoXo

    ReplyDelete

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