A bunch of squiggles labeled “dinosaurs” from preschool. A fifth grade report card. A ticket stub for the opening night for the first Lord of the Rings movie. Twenty two small rubber bouncy balls. Two pens from Disneyland. A schedule of events at the Smithsonian from 2008. Random pieces of a life.
All in the trash.*
George Carlin probably said it best: “That’s the whole meaning of life, isn’t it? Trying to find a place for your stuff.” And really, the point of life is to have stuff. We work so we can get money to buy stuff. We give away stuff we don’t want. We trade stuff for other stuff. When we have more money, we get better stuff. When we move in with someone, we get rid of some of our stuff to make room for their stuff. We all buy, sell and trade stuff for fun and profit. We’re stuff-mongers. We live in a stuff-centric society.
But when you get too much stuff you don’t want (“crap,” as Carlin would say, because other people’s stuff is “shit”), you have two options: hoard it or get rid of it.
The problem (for me at least), is that I was raised with my parents in opposing camps. So I feel a tremendous amount of guilt if I get rid of anything, but I feel guilty when I do clean up. I can’t separate my stuff from my crap. After all, there are a good number of reasons to keep everything:
- I might need it later
- I can give it to that guy I know who does that thing with it
- There’s a story behind why I have it
- It was a gift from someone else
The problem is that having a surplus of stuff is a bit of an oxymoron. I can’t take all of it with me; I’ll put stuff in storage, leave it with parents…eventually, I’ll have to sort through all of it. Which leads to now.
I spent some time last week going through a two-foot pile of birthday cards I received from the ages of 1 to 15. Do I need these? No. Do I want to keep them? Yes. So I devised three different strategies that helped me sort through the cards (and have since used to clean up my desk, bookshelves and other areas):
- Force odd-number categorizing. I grab three of whatever it is I’m sorting. One is trash. One is maybe. One is keep. If I can’t find one to get rid of, I take two more and throw one of the five away. After I’ve done this, I go through the “maybe” pile. By this time, I’ve gotten used to the idea of disposing things, so I can throw most of it away easily. I then repeat this process on the “keep” pile. This way, I’ve pared down to the essentials. If I have the option of donating this item, I automatically put the “maybe” pile in with donations and donate up to half of the “keep” pile.
- Examine relative value. If something can be replaced, upgraded, or ignored, I get rid of it. So my old pog collection is disposed of, but I keep a harmonica that used to belong to my grandpa. I’ll donate a shirt I got from a 5k I ran a few years ago, but I’ll keep the Kabuki mask I got at a street fair in London. Worst case scenario, I can go out and buy the thing again if I have to. And in most cases, I don’t have to.
- Remove all personal connections to the items. If I look at my stuff from an outsider’s view (ie: someone else’s “shit”), I can more accurately assess what has utility and what doesn’t. This removes emotional attachments from broken kinetic motion machines or mini water fountains and helps me pare down to what I can actually use.
I’m a long way from making my personal habitat more, well, habitable. I still have piles of receipts and flyers from events to go through. There are small mountains (or large hills) of old magazines to parse through. But for the first time in a long time, I’m getting my stuff in order, and throwing out the crap.
*Or recycling bin
