True confession: I am a catalog addict. I’ll read any catalog, even if it’s for farm equipment or shipping materials, in which I have zero interest. Mind you, I rarely order anything from these catalogs. I just like to look at them.
So when the latest catalog came from a national bedding store, I naturally spent a few minutes with it. The ads for colorful dorm room bedding, multi-fluorescent coffee makers, space savers, USB ports that attach to bed risers, rugs, chairs, media desks and you-name-it boggle my mind. What a lot of junk!
If you’ve ever been in a dorm room, you know they are miniscule. They bring a new dimension to the currently trendy idea of tiny houses. Where would the incipient college student keep all this crap in a 12×12 room shared with another human?
Another true confession: I come from the Pleistocene era. I went to college in the ‘60s, which is important information only to place a time frame on my current rant.
When I left for college at Purdue University in the fall of 1966, I had a couple of suitcases. Of course, this was long before the era of computers, so bins of electronics were not even on the radar screen.
We were required to use the standard issue dorm bedspreads. Beds, desks and dressers were bolted to the walls that were painted prison green. We had three feet of closet space. Period.
The no-nos were voluminous. No appliances of ANY kind in rooms. No phones in rooms—just one wall phone for an entire floor.
No birth controls pills. Everyone had to be in by 11. No boys in the dorm. Absolutely NO boys. But those are stories for another day.
I could go on and on, but I think you’re getting the point. It was a simpler time. Possibly because the university dictated it, but I didn’t have much stuff.
Today, we all have too much stuff. Yes, we are fixated on our electronics. Yes, our kids are coddled so much that they can’t be bothered to walk to the dining room to get a cup of coffee.
I remember being pleasantly surprised on a European trip last summer when we met a 40-something couple with their teenaged kids. Each had a small backpack containing one change of clothes and I assume a toothbrush and shampoo. That was it as they traveled on a month-long odyssey. We met them as my husband and I were struggling with our two large suitcases and carry-ons over Venice’s cobblestone streets.
I urge you to think about your stuff and how important it really is. In addition, I urge you to do the same for your kids.
I have some friends who are in the process of an interstate move. In order to sell their house, they were instructed by their realtor to de-clutter. They packed up tons of their stuff, including most of their three year-old son’s toys. They kept back about 10 toys for him. They report that he hasn’t seemed to notice the absence of box upon box of unused toys. He’s happy with a piece of paper and some crayons. Maybe they’ll decide to donate the excess before the moving van arrives.
Where’s the health message? Having too much stuff is stressful. The toll stress takes on our health is well documented. Are those five identical black t-shirts really worth the headaches, joint pain, binge eating, even heart disease they can cause?
I know, that sounds a bit dramatic, but maybe it’s really not when you add it up to all your stuff multiplied by the number of people in your household.
A couple of years back, I wrote about the energetic connections we have to our “stuff,” and how exhausting it is to have too much stuff.
I urge you to ask yourself these questions:
- What do I really need?
- What do my kids really need?
- What emotional price do we pay for all this stuff?
BTW As an aside, ask these questions of yourself. It’s probably legit to ask them of your immediate family—the ones with whom you share your living space—but not anyone else. Even urging your Significant Other to de-clutter can cause family friction.
I’ve learned this one the hard way: Not only do we have energetic ties to out “stuff,” we also have emotional ties to it.
