“The things we own ending up owning us.” Tyler Durden in Fight Club

     I am a firm believer in the old adage: when the student is ready the teacher will appear. The teacher can appear in the form of a person, a book, a song, a documentary, a film, or a chance encounter. Some would call this divine intervention, fate, karma, or life teaching us lessons. Whatever you wish to call it, there is no hiding the fact we sometimes are tapped on the shoulder by some life force to show us a different perspective. 

     Recently by accident I happened upon a documentary on Netflix called The Minimalists. While watching it I had an a ha moment in my life. The documentary is about two thirty something best friends who, realizing they have dream jobs, six figure incomes, huge houses, and huge debt and are living what most consider the American dream, decide to walk away from it all by becoming minimalists. When I first heard the term minimalist, I thought, hmm what’s this some guy living in a tent? In reality however it means living within your means without a lot of junk to clutter up your life giving you more time to focus on the really important things in your life.

     Everything they talked about in the documentary rang true to me. Here’s where the teacher/student adage mentioned above comes in! The most important message I got was to explore this lifestyle and the innovative ideas these two bright young men discovered and were living. They were clearly “walking the walk.” Minimalism is not a one size fits all, cookie cutter recipe, so I decided to explore a bit more. Being a reader, I discovered they had published two books, so I jumped on Amazon and ordered them both. 

     While I awaited the arrival of the books, I began thinking about some of the  messages in the documentary. I began asking myself questions about the things I had acquired over the years and what purpose they served then and now in my life. My eyes opened. I started with my closets, and embarrassingly found myself filling seven 30 gallon trash bags with clothes I no longer used or wore! Talk about an eye opener! Realizing I had shirts, pants, and coats which I hadn’t worn in years got my head wrapped around just how much “stuff” I had accumulated to clutter up my life. 

     And so after a few trips to the local clothing donation box, I felt a twofold satisfaction, first I was actually going to help someone who possibly had no clothes, and second I was un-cluttering my life. This was just the tip of the iceberg. I mean does one man really need fifty baseball caps? I’m a single guy who lives alone, could I possibly need 25 coffee mugs? Probably not. Questions I would ask myself again and again as I started to un-clutter my very cluttered life. 

     In a few days, the books arrived and I flew through the first one in no time knowing I would read it again and again, and savored the second to read slowly and digest the thoughts and ideas. While this was going on, I began the slow and laborious process of going through my house room by room, cabinet by cabinet, drawer by drawer and cleaning house literally and figuratively. To my amazement, it got easier the more the momentum was gained with each discarded item. 

     But what was I going to do with all this “stuff” I didn’t need anymore? I mean the clothes were easy I donated them to a local clothing bank. The idea hit me to have a tag sale and sell things I was no longer using. Items I felt at some point in my life that I just had to have to be happy, content, satisfied. The tag sale would help me un-clutter my life and any money I made would go directly to paying off debt.

     And so with each item I picked up, I asked myself three questions; had I used it in the last 90 days? Would I use it in the next 90 days? And if the answer to both of those were no, then I would ask myself the all important question, did the item add any value to my life? Realizing some were sentimental items this question became very tricky. Yes they were sentimental items, but did they add any value? This one question above all is without a doubt the hardest I had to ask and answer when cleaning house. 

     I heard a voice from the documentary and the book which basically said, our experiences are with each other, not with inanimate objects. Wow! Talk about a cultural shift in beliefs! As I began to ponder this posit, it meant letting go of an old tried and true belief I had which was I must hold onto “things” in order to have a relationship with the person who gave it to me. So if I threw out the cracked coffee cup someone gave me five years ago sitting on the shelf covered in dust did that mean I didn’t have a relationship or experience with that person? Hell no! It was a dusty, inanimate object cluttering up my life. It was my belief system that was holding me back. My belief that in order to hold onto or keep a bond with someone required me to keep items they had given me was ludicrous to say the least. 

     Let me pause here and say I’m not advocating throwing out any/all sentimental items if they serve a purpose. I kept family pictures and items which were sentimental AND served a purpose. A beautiful clock adorns my bookcase which was a gift from my godfather. It has sentimental value and it serves a very utilitarian purpose. It’s the bric a brac and stuff I never looked at, let alone used that I deep sixed! Over the years I had confused adding value with sentimentality. I found items stuffed on shelves in the back room in the back of bookcases which I couldn’t honestly recall had been gifts, or if I had purchased them at some point in my life. Realizing I had moved those “important items” from the front room to the back room to make more room in the front room for more “important items” was a sign it was time to get rid of stuff. It’s a vicious cycle of not being able to let go of anything because I was associating more pain of throwing the item out than I was pleasure of having an un-cluttered life. Each sentimental item I picked up made me realize that my experiences with the person who gave it to me existed in my mind NOT in the physical thing in my hand which I hadn’t looked at or used for years. My experiences with friends and people I love will forever be etched into my mind and I don’t need an item stuffed into the back of a closet to enable me to enjoy those experiences or remind me of them.

     I’m sitting in my living room looking at six big plastic tubs filled with stuff, next to them are six cardboard boxes of books, and next to them are another five large cardboard boxes filled with more stuff. These items are lined ten feet into my living room from my front door and these don’t count the things I can’t fit into boxes! There’s hat racks, a desk, several chairs, paintings I’ve taken down from the cluttered walls to name a few. How did I ever accumulate so much stuff I ask myself? I’m a single guy who lives alone in an 1100 square foot house and yet I have all of this stuff packed up and ready to sell and in all honesty it looks as if I’m getting ready to move out, but my house doesn’t look empty by any means, it looks much more open that’s for sure. 

     The garage is next and it takes me the better part of a day to pull down metal automobila signs, gather tools I haven’t looked at in twenty years, and sort through things I know I’ll never use and that are also collecting dust as the things in the house were. I find brand new “just in case” items still in their packages neatly sealed awaiting the apocalyptic emergency I was sure was going to come when I purchased them. I realize I have purchased many items over the years for a one time use and could have borrowed them from a friend had I just had the foresight to ask rather than run out and buy it as I’ve been conditioned to do all my life. 

     Being a musician means I have LOTS of musical stuff some of which I haven’t touched in years, others which I touch daily and with love and creativity. I ask my three questions and list a bunch of musical equipment for sale online. Keeping just the instruments I know I play and create with, means they add value to my life. Selling instruments that lay under my bed in cases collecting dust gives me great pleasure and hopefully some well needed cash. Luckily, I find a buyer who wants to buy the whole lot, lock stock and barrel! I come home that night and pick up my Martin acoustic guitar and strum a chord and hear the beauty of the space I have created around me both physically and mentally. This guitar is a keeper, it is truly one of my passions. In the days that follow, I find I don’t even miss the instruments that are gone. 

     The tag sale day arrives and it’s taken me nearly four hours to unpack everything, put it on tables, price it and move it outside. For two days I watch stuff go and I feel great about it. The joy of seeing people getting excited about getting a “deal” on my stuff is exhilarating. It was a lot of work, but at the end of the day most of the stuff sold and the stuff that didn’t sell, went to my neighbor who is having a tag sale in another month or so at another location. I couldn’t be happier, she couldn’t be happier. Three boxes full of books were donated to the local library without much fanfare, I simply went there when they were closed and put them by the front door, a gift to the librarian and anyone else who gets to read some of the magnificent books I had already read and was keeping for no good reason. 

     While my house is much emptier than it was, it certainly is not comprised of empty rooms and barren walls. It’s much nicer looking now, much easier to clean and much easier to spot things I no longer need, want or that don’t add value to my life. As I look around I wonder if having so much stuff made me a hoarder. I mean I’m wasn’t ready for A&E to come shoot their show at my house, but the fact sinks in that I had way too much stuff. I was a bit of a hoarder, albeit a very anal retentive, OCD one! 

     The really good news is that in a little over two weeks time I was able to pay down my debt to the tune of $5000 just in selling things I hardly looked at or used! It’s incredible what I was able to do with just the slightest change in my behavioral pattern and belief systems. This journey for me isn’t over, it’s a never ending one. Once the clutter was gone from my physical surroundings which was a very cleansing and liberating experience, it allowed me time and space to focus on what’s really important in my life; relationships, and embracing and following the passions that I have which are music and writing, which have become center stage for me. 

     Relationships that were toxic or relationships in which I wasn’t seeing a mutual sharing of respect needed to be reevaluated and in some cases terminated. One case in point involved someone who I would constantly call to see if they wished to go out to dinner or to spend time together and they always found a convenient excuse not to be able to go, however, when they needed money or a favor, I was the first on their call list. I realized I needed to distance myself from this relationship. While not entirely severing it, it was time for me to take a break from being the one who always initiated contact and invitations. Will it survive? Who knows? What I do know is I know have more free time to dedicate to those relationships where I do get mutual satisfaction.