Clutter isn’t an easy problem to solve, no matter how many times I might tell you to toss it out, tell you that you don’t need it.
A book isn’t just an object with words on it. A jewelry box isn’t just a container. Clothes aren’t just protection from the elements.
Each of these inanimate objects means so much more to us.
We put our emotions into them. We rely upon these objects to fulfill needs in us.
They are our crutches.
These crutches are convenient, because they save us from having to learn to cope with tough things. We’ve relied on these crutches often since childhood, and our culture has programmed them into us. If I point them out, some of you may get angry at me. That’s OK. Anger is an appropriate response — I’ve felt it myself when these issues came up in me.
What are we to do when we discover these crutches? We can’t just toss them out and think we’re done. We have to find new ways of dealing with our emotions and the world around us. Let’s start today.
These aren’t all true for every person, but I’ve found they’re very common:
1. Security. When we have lots of stuff around us, we feel more secure. Somehow it’s as if we can survive the apocalyptic winter, or at least an earthquake or economic recession.
New habit: Learn to combat fears with information. What’s the worst-case scenario? What could you do in that case even without the items around you? Do you have people you could rely on? Can you learn skills that don’t require clutter? Could you live without? Try it for a little while and see.
2. Self image and self worth. Clothes and jewelry and shoes and handbags make women feel pretty, feel attractive, feel good enough as a woman. Men rely on clothes, gadgets, hats and other accessories, tools, sometimes weaponry. We feel manly and good enough. Buying these things — shopping — is an activity that fills us with more self-worth, or at least staves off the feelings of inadequacy.
New habit: Learn that you don’t need external objects to be attractive or good enough. You are already perfect. Learn to love yourself as you are, without self improvement. Most people aren’t judging you, and if they are, they are not good for you.
3. Memories and holding on to the past. Photo albums, mementos, gifts from loved ones, yearbooks and other school memorabilia, souvenirs, books, trophies, plaques, framed photos, sometimes old clothes … these objects and more hold emotions and memories from the past. They represent good times, perhaps better times, perhaps love from someone special, past glory, shared experiences. But this is living in the past, and while the past is important, it isn’t your life.
New habit: Learn to live in the present. Let the past go, like an old friend who has come to visit and has now left. You can always revisit this old friend later, but there’s no need to hold onto her. Let her live her life, and you live yours. You don’t need objects to represent memories and good times and glory, because those objects aren’t those good times or glory. Those objects aren’t the love that they represent. Live new good times, make new love.
4. Love. It was mentioned above, but it’s actually a separate role. Objects that have emotional value — often gifts or something similar — represent the love of the person who gave them to us. Earrings from your husband, a hand-crafted gift from your child, a book from your parent. We hold onto them because we use them to feel loved.
New habit: Realize that things aren’t love, and that the love is only in people. Go spend time with those people, if possible, and not with things. If the person is gone (possibly dead), realize that the love is in you, not the object, and you don’t need this crutch to feel that love.
5. Possibilities for improvement. Self-improvement books or literature on our shelves we haven’t read, tools for building or making something, exercise equipment or yoga clothes, gardening tools or baking apparatuses, a dusty old bike or running shoes … there are lots of objects we don’t actually use but hope to someday. Holding on to them represents the possibility, sometime in the future, that we will be better. We will improve. We hope, and as long as we hold on to those objects, that hope is alive.
New habit: Squash every bit of hope in yourself. Just kidding. But again, live in the present, not in the future. Do things right now that make you happy, and don’t keep objects as placeholders for some perfect future that will never come. If you don’t use things, give them to someone who will. Maybe keep one, and tell yourself if you don’t use it in the next month, it goes. Mark it on your calendar.
6. Comfort. When we’re feeling lonely or depressed or stressed or frustrated, we often turn to shopping. Buy objects, because they won’t judge you, they will comfort you like a teddy bear or security blanket, they don’t require wooing or coddling in order to be in your life, just a credit card. But they don’t solve any of your problems, and in fact add to your clutter problem and possibly your debt problem.
New habit: Deal with the problems. If they seem tough, deal with them in small steps. Loneliness means we need to connect with other humans, not object. Depression can be helped by talking with people, by getting active. Stress can be relieved by simplifying your life, being active, resting. Frustrating problems are best dealt with by eliminating things or working out better ways of doing things.
7. Procrastination. Sometimes we know we don’t need things but we leave them in huge piles because we don’t want to deal with them. Clutter is procrastination, because it’s easier to leave it and let it pile up than deal with it, just like it’s easier to avoid dealing with problems. Deal with it later, I don’t have time right now. You dread the pile. But putting it off only makes it worse, and the stress of putting it off builds up inside us, deteriorating the quality of our lives.
New habit: Take one piece, and deal with that. Feel good, and take on the next piece. You don’t need to conquer the mountain, but just that first step. Get helped from a friend or partner, and make it fun and social.
8. Excitement. Camping or mountain climbing or skiing or surfing or biking gear can represent excitement in the future. Lots of other objects might also represent future excitement — computers, clothes, jewelry, tools, luggage, and more. Somehow just having these items in our lives means we might someday have more fun.
New habit: Realize you don’t need objects for excitement or fun. You can have fun with nothing. By yourself. Or with a friend. With new friends. Right now, not in the future. And when the future comes, you can still do that, without all this gear.
There are many other roles that clutter plays in our lives, but these are some of the more common ones. Once you start to look at your clutter in this way, you can see that it’s a crutch. That you don’t really need that crutch, because you’re strong enough to learn to live without it. And you’ll be better off without it.
I’m excited to let you know about my new ebook on clutter, called Clutterfree, that I’ve created with my friend Courtney Carver of Be More with Less. It’s about dealing with your clutter, getting rid of it, learning to live without it. It’s about finally becoming clutterfree.
The book includes interviews with two excellent people: Joshua Becker of Becoming Minimalist and Tammy Strobel of Rowdy Kittens, and is actually a precursor to a Clutterfree course that Courtney and I are running in January.
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