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The Surprising Benefits “Decluttering” Taught Me About Happiness
Making a home for my future self
For as long as I can remember, I was a packrat. An organized packrat, but I loved collecting stuff. Everything had a memory connected to it. Even after things were old and faded, I still struggled to throw them away. My things were like old friends. They once brought me joy. How can I just toss them out and move on?
This struggle sat with me for most of my time on this tiny planet.
It felt like I was somehow the bad guy if I got rid of stuff that still could be repurposed. Life was life and I could not consciously throw away something that still had a purpose. My window sill is covered with plant life, but the thought of allowing one living plant to just die did not sit well with my soul.
Like most packrats, there comes a time when stuff starts to out populate the inhabitants. For my husband, a fellow packrat, the solution lay in more storage containers. For a while there, I felt personally responsible for increasing Rubber Maid’s profits. I almost expected a thank you letter from the CEO as he sipped margaritas in the Caribbean. Every nook and cranny was fair game for storage. It became like playing a giant game of Jenga©️ when we tried to remember where something was stored. The hours alone spent…
