You may call this a sequel to last my blog: "my journey on de cluttering". Cait Flanders in one of her "Blonde on a Budget" blogs said:
"I wasn't living an extravagant life style, I'm just consuming more than I needed".
In a sense, we are like her, we also lead a simple lifestyle but we do have more stuff than we need, otherwise, why do we need a storage shed?
The idea of being a minimalist is becoming more popular nowadays, especially among the young. Couples are more inclined to discard their stuff , we see people on tv decluttering to fit smaller homes, some even move to a "tiny house". However, it maybe more challenging for oldies like me to do that; our ways are set and we become more sentimental as with age; there's just too many memories attached to our belongings.
My attempt to discard stuff we don't need started when we moved to a new home. After seeing the enormity of our material possessions it got me thinking that I had more than I needed and that stopped me from buying things. This was a wake up call that stuck with me this passed year, otherwise, I would have continued buying stuff to this day.
Isn't it a blessing in disguise then that circumstances led me to realize that owning too much is robbing me of time better spent doing things that matter most; focusing on this so-called "business of living", making my life happier and more productive? At some point don't we all want to declutter for a simpler life but we just don't know how? I consider myself lucky that I finally got started.
I felt better after disposing a good bulk of our stuff, in my mind I saw order, I felt that everything is more organized without the need to cramped as much objects as I can in a limited storage space. This encouraged me to continue decluttering.
Looking back, I have been oblivious to my surroundings, I should have learned from my children earlier on. Now I have a flashback of my son opening his mail, crumples what's not important and throws them in the waste can. When he moved to his own home, he would often bring a bag of stuff he doesn't want, paperbacks he has read, little things he got as gifts that are not useful to him. I remembered catching them all and putting them away on cabinets and shelves; little did I realize that he learned early.
My younger daughter is an advocate of minimalism. I think she also learned the hard way. When she was single her shoes were in their original boxes piled one on top of another more than a meter high, occupying an entire wall of her room. When my 6-year-old granddaughter visited, she was over-whelmed.
"Wow, you have lots of shoes. May I see your clothes?". When she opened the cabinet she got another surprise when some clothes fell off.
After she got married she and her husband must have pledged to start being minimalists. Would you believe that they bought their dinner set one piece at a time? Yes, they didn't get the whole set at once. And this is also true with pots and pans.
"It's a good thing that I can buy Corelle one piece at a time", she happily told me.
When they learned that my husband and I were visiting, they bought another pair of dining chairs. She even sent me a picture of the new acquisition and I joked back:
"So now Dad and I can sit as well". "Yes!", she replied. We brought them peanuts among other local delicacies and only then did they buy a mason jar to store it.
We sat on a couch in front of the tv in the living room and she sat on a kitchen ladder while entertaining us. My son-in-law sat in the dining area. A week after we left, they got an armchair for the living room. Do you see that they won't buy anything unless they see the need? They only buy kitchen equipment after serious discernment regards its use and only if they have a space for it in their two-bedroom condo.
Not to be out-done, my older daughter has always sorted her stuff and like my son, she would also bring stuff home to give away. Lately though, she has been more determined that she doesn't miss a thing. She started with her clothes, then kitchenware and lately she had me sell her daughter's toys; barbie dolls, sets of Polly pocket, girlie vanity items and out-grown clothes at my store. The bigger and more expensive stuff were sold on line.
From her daughter's stuff, she now has a budget to renovate her daughter's room and buy furniture to suit a teenager. Not that she wouldn't spend out-of-the-pocket money for that, but isn't it a good thing that she got back enough from old stuff to do this?
In all my earnestness to pursue this endeavor, I have to be honest, I have one dilemma. My husband disposes his personal stuff sparingly. He has four golf sets complete in their bags. Don't you think they are bulky? One entire wall in the storage shed is a two-tier rack where his coats, jackets and shirts are hang in addition to those in his closet inside the house. I can't dispose his clothes and his personal effects. I'm just glad he trusts me to take charge of the kitchen items.
The idea of being a minimalist does not only clear our space with much clutter, it also allows us to focus on what is really important. It saves us money too because we realize that we don't need another item to bring home. Last Christmas, I avoided the bazaars; during my last trip to Singapore, I only went to the mall once and didn't buy anything but food for family back home. But early, early on, before all this decluttering matter, we went to Europe and I bought souvenirs from every city we visited, but I say" never again", I promise!
No comments:
Post a Comment