After my first steps in the “decluttering world”, it all went well and was a very fast process!
Well! Not really… Maybe in an ideal world where you are not bounded by your belonging… Maybe…
But in the world I was living at this time, I was relying on everything I owned or will own, making it one of my main purpose of happiness: Buying things make you happy, buying more things even more and so on… Thinking of what you could buy by having that much money would be the next goal to achieve.
You see, when you stayed in a flat during one year you accumulate a lot. I mean look around to the “useful” stuff you bought so far this year, we are end of January already and I guess, being honest, you could count at least ten things you bought or received as a present!
I’m not saying that is bad but while decluttering my place it helped me realized how often I was buying things which I wasn't using at all or maybe no more than one or two times.
That was a long process at start, I had to choose what to keep, what to throw away, what to give, what to sell. Looking around at first, I saw nothing I wanted to let go.
I already cleaned these shelves so why not having a look inside the closets.
That was time to open my wardrobe. I knew deep inside me that in there a lot of clothes were waiting to know there faith.
First the really really old and loose t-shirts, socks, shirts, underwears, pants went there way to the trash. I wondered “Why the hell I'm keeping it? No one would want to wear it, including me!”
In case! In case of what? I’ll never know! There is always an ideal and magic place in our mind where it could be use… I was a keeper… an “in case” keeper dude.
Most of the things you keep-let’s be honest again-whatever good reasons you have to, you’ll never use it.
Ask you the question “Will I really really really use it one day?”
You know the answer: “Never, Never, Never…. will use it…” or a “Well...humm… maybe...”
If the answer is not a prompt “YES” in the first two minutes, well you know that you won’t (use it anymore)!
That would probably be a second ground rule that I apply to me quite often : “Do I really need to keep this object? If yes, when will I use it again? Tomorrow? Next month? Next year?”
If it's not tomorrow or this week, then I know what I have to do: get rid of it by giving it, selling it or throwing it.
it’s really easy now to deal with it: I’m not having any closet to fill anymore and only my 38L backpack as container for my belonging. Even with one bag and living in a very small room, I ask myself quite often :
“Am I using it often enough to keep it?”
Being a minimalist doesn’t mean that you stop owning things or you are not buying things anymore. You simply buy less things and are really aware of what you buy. Not all your objects have to be useful, but you know that you’ll use them often and you’ll be happy to own it.
If I decide to buy or change one of my belonging (cloth, device, etc...), I’m not going to the store straight away and will never buy the first time I see it. First, I ask myself: Do I really need it? Will I use it that often? How will I store it in my bag, do I have to let go another of my belonging to own a new one.
These are simple questions to ask yourself and that saved a lot of time and sometimes money.
We often buy things on the go, thinking we need it straight away. When, maybe, if given a second thought we would have never buy this thing.
Have you ever experienced buying an amazing cloth or a device you absolutely needed and when back home this feeling disappeared quite quickly? The cloth you planned to wear everyday and was looking amazing in the shop, doesn't seem as Amazing now. The small useful and cheap device is not really useful after all… and so on… These are most of the things which are filling our closets and gathering the dust on our shelves.
I did it and many times. I never really payed attention to it. I was buying what I wanted to. After all that's why we are working for? Isn't it!?
When I buy something now, I’m going for a better quality of the product to make sure it will last longer.
I recently changed my socks, they were getting old. Since I became a Minimalist, I’m owning four pairs of socks. I took my time to find a good brand which I felt could be a good match. Here in Japan they have these amazing fingers socks which I totally felt in love with. They are so comfy! I found some which I love to wear, they are not cheap, it’s about 15euros each.
Owning less mean that I love all the objects I’m owning.
Yes, you might think: these are only socks, come on! And that’s the all point! I love all the objects I'm owning now because I'm not owning thousands and I choosed them carefully.
If you are not loving what you own, why owning it?
After doing piles of “What I’ll want to keep” – the biggest and tallest one of course – “What I’ll keep maybe” and “What I will give”, I realized that it will take several try to end up with an honest amount of clothes to keep.
I put the ‘What I’ll give’ in a bag and went outside. Luckily in London, there is a lot of way of donating. The first and easy one, are the big Clothes Donation Boxes up the street!
This mix feeling when the giant black box was swallowing my belonging was quite strange: some uncertainess and happiness.
We are so connected and bounded to our belonging that even the smallest we have to let go it’s difficult.
Having access to these donation boxes changed everything for me. I realized that it wasn’t that difficult after all and that even if it was only some small clothing, there were a chance that it helped someone. After that the black donation box and I became good friends, I payed her a visit every day.
More I was giving, selling or throwing away, easier it became.
We are Habit’s animals after all.
The next Sunday I found a small backpack in my closet. Of course, I had forgot about it, like most of the objects hidden in our closets. I could say now “THE BACKPACK”. I bought it while living in New-Zealand, small, 38L with an opening on the top, very convenient. I didn’t know by this time that it will become my life container, my portable house. I’m still using it today and is getting lighter and lighter. At start, I wanted to buy a way bigger one to go on the trip, but why not give a try to this one, just for fun. Let’s see how much I can put in it! And that wasn't much! Haha!
Of course the bag was full very quickly, that was a dumb idea. Impossible to live with this few! How could I? I putted it back where it belong and forgot it. I’ll have to buy a new one later, anyway.
Decluttering my apartment became a fun activity. There were always stuff to give, to sell or to throw away.
Day after day my belonging was disappearing and that was weird, I mean really weird:
Instead of feeling empty with all these objects going away I was feeling quite happy indeed.
That was like I had a clearer way of thinking. Less to worry about. Here the things, there is quite a fair amount of belonging that are hidden in our closet, on our shelves, in our cupboards, crying silently waiting for us to pay attention to. They are part of our daily lives without even being noticed by us. They are here because we were happy to buy them, we kept them in ‘case’, they look good on the shelves.
But honestly how many objects are we using daily?
You can try it if you want: Take a box, put few things -you are not using daily- in it. Close the box, wait… keep on living…
You’ll probably be surprised that none of these objects were missing to your daily life and that you cannot remember all the objects that are in the box after less than two weeks…
If that so, well maybe you don’t need these objects after all, maybe you can give it, sell it or throw it?
I sold my computer, my beautiful collection of collectables – yeah, I know – my blender and other kitchen devices and gave to a charity mostly all of my furnitures including my bed, my dear and loved tatami, futon bed! Yes! That was one of the most difficult to say goodbye to.!
The last night before leaving, sitting there, looking around at the emptyness! Nothing was there anymore. Nothing, except the little bag -that I finally convinced myself to use- and me.
I realized that nothing was missing.
I had now everything I needed.
I had let go…
