Stuff

We moved 20 months ago and there is still stuff everywhere. We moved from a tiny flat (30 square metres) to a house, and somehow there still isn’t room for everything. Where on earth did we keep it all in the flat?? How have we ended up with so much stuff?

Here is the contents of one of the boxes we just unpacked:

• A blank memorandum and articles of association (may be useful one day…)
• An empty tupperware box with no lid (lid may be found then it might be useful)
• A half full / empty zip up case with office bits and bobs in – stapler, scissors etc (never useful but a Xmas present so feel bad ditching it)
• A kid’s “Lets Dance” music tape
• A pile of birthday and other cards from the last year or so
• Some tangled cables and chargers (oh there are lots and lots and lots of those in our house….)
• Case for a mobile phone we no longer own
• A cheque book for an account I no longer have
• A bulb for a super 8 projector
• A few old watches

We also own an electric guitar, a mountain bike or two, lots of stereo stuff in duplicate, an inexplicable number of camera bags and old phones. None of which we ever use.

The list goes on. We have started to take drastic action to reduce the stuff. It doesn’t just clutter up our house, it clutters up our life, holds us back and makes everything take longer because we can never find anything. It has also cost a lot of money, but more about that another day. So the first step has been to start to sort it out with the result that, like an unwanted lodger, most of it will be leaving our house in one way or another.  The first batch has been sold on ebay (with several more to go), the second batch is going to a car boot sale today. Another pile is steadily growing for the local charity shops.

At the same time we need change our thinking. Stop buying new stuff. Not so hard recently, not sure why. Can we stop wanting stuff? Well, I don’t expect we will reach Nirvana but we might achieve our own kind of enlightenment. Ommmmmm.

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