The Overwhelming Desire to Store Stuff!
Stuff needs a piece of me and a piece of my space!
As I continue with this series on procrastination and stuff, it is worth looking at our desire to store the items we have. Free stuff especially, takes even more from you…
It has always intrigued me that when I buy something, use something or replace something that it needs a place to be stored. In other words it needs a piece of me and a piece of my space. It does not just require the passing over of some form of payment.
The intrigue continues though. If I am paying for something I needed, then another piece of me has to be sacrificed in the first place so I could purchase the item! This is where the storage of items and the payment for them really comes into view.
I need to first sacrifice something to get the forms of payment – let’s say money – so I needed to pay in my time and in sacrifice of other things I needed to do. I pass the money over as a representation of that time and energy and gain something else in its place which I then take home and…. store?
Is the Item Enhancing your Living?
I would like to think that a purchase needs to enhance my life and my surroundings. So if I am storing items I purchase, then really I am not using the best of my time to greatest advantage. We get so caught up in the process of holding onto things and looking after them that they take over, they rule us. That tiny ornament that just cannot be thrown away is there, holding onto space and onto my thoughts.
All Items Hold Us!
It’s time to see how these items hold us, how they claim space from our lives both physically and mentally. The storing of an item is only necessary for something that is useful on a regular basis. For example, having a car and a bicycle is acceptable because on a weekly or fortnightly basis you may use one or the other. Storage then becomes meaningful, however, having a car to sit outside, just in case you need it during the year, or a bicycle that has been used once this year, but you have fallen over it 26 times getting to the other things in the shed, is not a good use of storage.
It’s time to make decisions, start with a draw that is stuffed with all sorts of bits and bobs. Look through them, decide what needs action, what needs to be put in its rightful place and what needs to be thrown away. You can begin using the draw in a more organised way and be happier with the extra space for meaningful items. Look back over my previous articles to see a way of making a starting point
Storage and stuff should enhance your life, NOT be a competition to hide it away so it looks all good from the outside. As always thanks for joining me and if you enjoyed what you read give me a like over on Facebook or a tweet over on Twitter. Maybe even leave a comment below letting me know what items have lost their value over time, and why you still cannot get rid of them.
Act Anyway for tomorrow may never come
Previously we discussed “Banishing Procrastination with One Minute” which can be found here. To return to the category of Stuff, click here.
