When I see the all the items in the weekly ad for an electronics store here, one word comes to mind: “landfill.”
Most of the items in the ad will wind up there in three or four years. Or, worse, they will wind up in the back of a closet not to be seen again.
My favorite of all the makeover shows of the last few years is "Clean Sweep," now sometimes seen in reruns on TLC. The premise of the show is incredibly simple--move everything from two rooms of someone’s home onto their front lawn and then sell or throw away half of it. Then move what’s left back into newly organized and decorated rooms.
The show is often a disturbingly vivid revelation of people’s emotional attachment to things--usually things at the bottom of boxes in the back of closets that haven’t been seen in years.
The show’s organizational expert was always very clear in acknowledging that all of us get attached to certain things, and that can be fun and life-enhancing. He would say that if a certain picture or gift is truly meaningful to us, we should recognize and honor it.
On the other hand, he would say that if something is important to us, it shouldn’t be buried in a closet--effectively lost. If something is buried in a closet, it is likely because it is not important to us. We just haven’t thought about it.
We all have lots of things in our lives that we don’t want, but we think are too good to throw away or give away, so we put them away. Often it’s stuff we have inherited or been given, and we think that we can’t get rid of it without offending the person who gave it to us--even if the person is dead.
Guilt is a powerful motivator for doing nothing.
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