My husband and I are almost 60. Getting rid of things is very freeing. An opportunity to begin new hobbies or more time to enjoy the hobbies we already have. And less for our sons to deal with after we're gone.
As usual, you are so insightful. You should be a therapist! As someone near the end of their decluttering journey, I have to encourage people that it gets easier. I never imagined I could get rid of all my books but when deciding what to discard, I thought why not all? No regrets. I have access to art and history on RU-vid and any paperbacks I read get immediately passed on. I am about to go through photos for the third time - a bit more difficult.
Thank you so much for all your thoughtful videos. They help me on my minimalism journey with encouragement and kindness. After half a year of decluttering, which was really hard in the beginning, I am actually now looking forward to finding more things I don´t need, that don´t fit etc and that might be of use for other people. It is so freeing to only own what is useful or enjoyable. We are moving next month to a home nearly half the size and I am glad to have less space for things and therefore less work to clean and store.
Guilt about gifts and hand-me-downs from past generations with a close second being the fear that I will regret tossing it. One way I combat the latter is allowing time between deciding to toss and pulling the trigger. I am paring down a ridiculous book and DVD collection. I fill a box for Half Price Books and let it sit a week and then it goes. I've taken out only a couple things over many months, and often they have gone into the next box. One hurdle I've cleared is sunk-cost. HPB gives me pennies on the dollar, and I'm okay with that--glad just to have freed up space and lightened my load! I love your videos!
Excellent video, very informative. I have never heard the emotions all listed together before. The examples are very enlightening , I felt the power of them as I listened to you. It is educational. Thank you.
Guilt/obligation also can be about things people want us to DO both on a small or large scale. And fear can work that way also. OMG embarrassment has been a huge one for me. I think also that it’s shame related. And it prob should be noted also that some people really like to stoke all those natural fires within us in all these areas. Looking to create shame or guilt or any of the rest of it. Gotta watch out for those “baiters” and work at becoming bait proof. Ooh. Recently I was deep diving on a thing or two. It all started when I ran across a quote that struck me in the moment. Mostly contrasting the “big life” with the “small life.” Of course I know this concept in my head but today it hit me in some kind of way. Very personally. We could say either things we are given by others or things we gave ourselves. Looking for easy street or being enticed into something like that. Just noticing that some “gifts” are things that actually deprive us of valuable life opportunities. And the nature of a gift is just that. It’s handed to you and you didn’t “earn” it. So sometimes that is nice or needed but other times it’s robbing us of what we could learn and experience if we had strived for it ourselves. I know personally what I don’t want anymore are the kind of “gifts” that take away my chances to go “learn to fish” and be proud of myself. Rather than them giving me some fish. And right? That just isn’t helpful at all. You’re getting something, sure. But what’s it really doing for you tho? Learning and growing by doing (even when struggling) is truly a better gift than the stuff you got for “free.” (Although I could make a very good argument about how “free” isn’t really free). Idk if it’s always “strings attached” or other things, but I have just grown to loathe getting anything from anyone that feels more like a pity vote. All those things we learn along the way ya know prepare us better for the upcoming future things. If we don’t get those opportunities, future things might be more of a curse than a blessing….Bcuz we were not ready for them or just don’t know what to do with them. So in that way…less truly IS more. Having a lot while being in over your head really does seem to always come with boatloads of trouble. And usually more trouble than it’s ever worth. The lotto winner. The child star. The burdensome inheritance. All of which seem to often wreck someone’s life. Like some silver spoon curse. All of this turmoil going on underneath while everyone is telling them how “lucky” they are. Bcuz idk. A fancy job or ritzy house on the hill. Bling. Fame. Status. Someone who can afford Versace and a Cessna and a Tesla. Is that really any kind of mark of “success” tho? I don’t think it is. So in an ironic and weird way, sometimes a decrease in “net worth” can actually be an upgrade and progress. The megalomaniacs (and all of their brainwashed devotees) will think you’ve gone mad and they’ll say you’re going backwards, but eh….I don’t think so. Lol. I also “touched the grass” yesterday (and the dirt and cedar mulch and pine straw lol and the sun mixed with the crisp fall air was amazing-along with the kitties hanging around playing with random sticks I threw out lol-and I wouldn’t trade that for anything) and had the immense satisfaction of the “good tired” after some outside “hard labor” so I guess it’s causing me to wax philosophical again. Lol.
I figured you would have quite a bit of insight in this regard! It’s crazy how much these emotions can mess with us! I love that you had a chance to get out in nature and truly enjoy it! ❤️
@@ArrowHillCottage Lol. I wonder when I don’t have a lot to say. 😂😂 Working on it. Lol. Yeah. Idk. I guess a thing or two finally “sunk in” and I thought that was pretty exciting. Part minimalist concepts and part “healthy family” characteristics. Like I think I know a thing (such as money isn’t everything), but not sure until that moment if I really believed my own preaching about it. The internal stuff like is that really true tho? Bcuz you’re just raised to think a certain way about success. Or you examine yourself like am I just looking for a cop out excuse Bcuz I didn’t wind up with any magnanimous “career success.” But idk. I was always drawn to things like hippy culture or bohemians or free spirits or tiny home people or van lifers or missionary type of folks. Or creative types or “starving” artists or musicians. I even could see why some people want to be nuns (Aka “vow of poverty”) etc. So I mean you’re thrown into this kind of driven, workaholic, hustle, entrepreneurial, make a lot of money type of family and since he’s dictator like, you’re just expected to get in line with that program or vision. I do kinda see now that something like that has never been “me.” Lol. I think I could be very happy floating around like a bohemian hippy tho and not really ever having any great “building wealth” plan. 😅😅 But just seeing how giving your kids so much stuff all the time but never teaching them “how to fish” isn’t being amazingly loving. It’s actually robbing them of what they need to learn about life. But eh. My parents are mental and twisted with gifts and money etc so there’s that too. I’m just very excited Bcuz it helps reinforce that I’m not the “crazy” one for wanting the kind of simple “small” life I have always wanted. But I don’t think a lot of parents are so happy anyways if the kid comes to them and says yeah. I wanna be a hippy. 😂😂 Idc tho. I won’t be living in a grass hut in the jungle anyways but small and simple is still better imo. But at any rate a healthy family will not do things like squash personal diversity. I guess also the song “Same as it ever was” by Talking Heads comes to mind. Lol. They want to imply that I’m a “failure” Bcuz I didn’t “thrive” according to their narrow world view or in their twisted world. But of course I didn’t (and idc) Bcuz I never wanted all that crap anyways. Lol. In some ways I could see how empty everyone in the fam was, even tho they were pretending to be so happy and were def prospering financially. And I didn’t want that kind of empty, though prosperous existence. Yeah. I mean I don’t like bugs so besides a few spiders or whatever was under a few random pavers is all I saw this time of year. Lol. And I DO love this time of year also Bcuz it’s so much nicer than the heat summer swamp lol. For real tho it’s been the first week of a marked cooling off and it just woke me up like I just had to go be out in it. (Before the frigid winter sets in lol). But as they say too. Sometimes you work when you don’t feel like it but if you’re really feeling it then get out there and go for it. Lol. Porch project phase 3. Lol.
I completely agree with you! The emotional ties that keep us from purging items we don't use only mean something to us and nobody else. For example, the idea of "I'm going to save these items because one day my child(ren) will inherit them. As harsh as this sounds, there is a good chance your child(ren) may not even want those items and they will end up in the dumpster. If you're saving the good China for that same reason, maybe you should let your child(ren) enjoy using them now :-)
As usual your ideas are so insightful and resonate deeply within. I’ve gone through many of these on my life journey , sometimes with a therapist. As I’ve decluttered it has opened up some old scars, but conquering those emotions and freeing myself from the stuff attached to them has been incredible. Thank you for reminding me to be proud of my accomplishments 🥰💖
Love your List. THE LIST. GREAT Book title! Be my guest🙏❤️ My take on Why? 1. Scarcity 2. CHILDHOOD trauma. 3. What’s AfterLife? BTW Re: Letters? Got just the One, and ALL in, what has truly become my second language! (Trust me, I earned it!) Been wanting to burn for soooooooo long. Why haven’t I? They are ALL written in French, my acquired lifetime goal! I’m ready now because I just need this chapter to b gone back into the Universe. Personal Cleansing is a Lifelong Journey, hence my myriad years of delayering, which I hope continue until I am satisfied
I don't like it when people always are bragging that the 80' or 90's is the best decade when the current stuff like internet, smartphones, digital cameras & a whole lot of technology didn't exist. Honestly that's an example of living in the past. Nostalgia. I am a firm believer of what you did in the past doesn't matter. The here the present, that's what matters. I do have 1 regret though. Graduating High School as a teen. I would go get my high school diploma in my early 20's. The reason for this is because when your a kid, you get bullied, sexually harassed, physically abused, emotional abuse, teachers scream & yell because kids don't keep quiet. Then there is also the part that when I was a kid, I didn't learn things as quickly like now. As an adult I went to school. Colleges etc. When you are an adult, you don't have to worry about these things when you go to school.
I have for years when my husband cheating kept as proof or for me to reread to hold on. We faced it confronted it, 18 years I still keep it, we have been married 36 years married I still have them.
