The Stuff of Life

October 15, 2008

I don't know if I heard, or read, or just thought, that if you spend the first 50 years of your life accumulating things, you should spend the next 30 (or whatever) getting rid of them.

This makes sense to me. Having passed 50 a few years ago, and due to various life events that I will not go into at the moment, I am now gradually trying to pare down the posessions I have accumulated.

It is no secret to anyone who lives in this country that we Americans have a lot of stuff. Way too much stuff.

We have enjoyed sixty years of unparalleled prosperity. We have bought more and more stuff, and bigger and bigger houses to hold the things we have bought; it seems that rather than getting rid of items when the house gets crowded, we just decide we need a bigger house. Then, we need more stuff to fill the bigger house. It's a vicious circle!

The thing is, buying things can be quite enjoyable. There is a whole area of addiction involving compulsive conspicuous consumption, shopaholism, technically known as oniomania; it is thought that 90% of shopaholics are women. And although this problem seems like something that Lucy Ricardo would have, people have been known to spend themselves into bankruptcy, buying things they don't need, or really even want, just to make themselves feel good. Then, of course, they feel bad for spending all of that money, and have to shop again to make themselves feel good...another vicious circle.

I have never felt myself to be a shopaholic, but I have sometimes gone out and bought something when I felt a little blue. Why shopping makes us feel good I don't know. Perhaps, for women, it hearkens back to the gatherer role that women occupied in hunter-gatherer societies.

Whatever the reason, I have decided that having too much stuff is not good, and actually causes anxiety, because it is harder to find things. So, I am starting to pare down. I am trying to keep to a rule that if something new comes into the house, something else must leave. I am going through all of my books - which are located in bookcases, stacks, on tables, under tables, you get the idea - removing the ones I have no interest in, boxing them up and taking them wherever they will be accepted and given a good home.

I am trying not to just throw things away (which would be my husband Norm's choice). While that gets an item out of the house quickly, it does seem wasteful, and then I worry about where it will end up. I would rather donate, or have a yard sale. My rule of thumb is if something is broken, it is trash; if it is still usable, it isn't.

My birthday is coming up in a few weeks, and I have started asking my loved ones for consumable items as gifts - gift certificates for dinner, flowers, chocolate (oh yes, by all means, chocolate) would all be acceptable.

I am looking forward to the day when all of my books fit into bookcases; when the coat closets are not overstuffed; when everything can be "put away".

In the meantime, if you are having a yard sale, let me know. I have this great lamp...