Possessions

Happy Tuesday,

How are you all doing on this terrific Tuesday morning? All is well here. It’s still blazing hot, but I’m thankful for my home, the AC and my fans. How are you all handling the heat? Try and stay cool. Don’t want anyone ending up with heat-stroke.

Today I wanted to talk about owning things. I suppose with John moving up here to the lake and the amount of stuff we have between us, the quote really resonated with me frommagemind.com.

You see, I’m a compulsive holiday decoration buyer and hoarder and John is an electronic and gizmo and gadget hoarder, so between the both of us, holy heck, watch out. We’ve got stuff. Then there’s Grant. He’s holds onto stuff too. All of the stuff we’ve got between the three of us, well, it’s more then I can handle.

So, when I read the quote this morning I thought, WOW!! Game on. While I can’t control, nor do I want to control what John keeps, I can control what I have and keep. I have had a jump on discarding and rehoming things before John moved to the lake, but today, when mage-mind posted the following quote, I thought, what a great way to stay focused on purging.

“If you own something you cannot give away, then you don’t own it, it owns you.”-Albert Schweitzeir.

Powerful, right? I mean, if we are holding onto everything with such a grand importance attached to it, then it does truly own us. I do believe there are certain things that I won’t part with. Certain things that are so dear to me that they hold a memory of sorts and I don’t want to give it up, but, and I mean BUT, some of the holiday decorations I’ve collected over the years, I can part with them.

As far as our villages, yes villages. John and I have been collecting not only Christmas village pieces, but Halloween as well, those mean something to me. They are pieces we’ve bought together and they are part of our tradition, one that we started together. They are keepers, especially the one he just bought for us last week.

Like with everything, I do believe we must practice balance in our lives, including balance with our material possessions. However, I do feel when we are spring cleaning and going through our closets and such, we could benefit by asking ourselves, “why do I need this and can I part with it?” If the answer is no, I cannot part with whatever it is, then we need to go to the question, are we allowing it to own us?

I have 25+ Christmas trees. Do I need them? No. Do I want them, yes. Do I want to store them? No. Solution, pare down.

Last year I had 5 trees in one room. I had a 7 1/2 foot tree, 3, 4 foot trees and a 2 foot tree. A little over kill. Beautiful, but really, my home isn’t that big and I really don’t need that many trees in one room. They all had their own theme, hence, the multitude of trees, but again, I need to put into practice, balance.

While I don’t need to keep over 20 trees, I would like to make sure that as I pare down, I keep just enough to have a little splash of Christmas in every room. Same with the other holidays, I don’t need the amount of stuff I have. My happiest splash of Christmas and Halloween are my villages, the rest, while nice, it truly is too much.

“Earthly possessions dazzle our eyes and delude us into thinking that they can provide security and freedom from anxiety. Yet all the time they are the very source of anxiety.”-Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

This statement couldn’t be more true for me. While I was packing up John’s condo in San Diego for his move here to the lake, OM-Goodness did we accumulate way too much stuff. We literally can furnish two homes and then some. I thought I pared down enough here, but that wasn’t the case either. The result, we have a storage unit and a full garage.

In no way am I saying that all the stuff we have is John’s, it’s just that I was overkill on the amount of belongings I had, and I filled our lake home and it didn’t seem like a lot, not until we started combining things, then it hit me. We don’t have space for everything.

My goal is to start downsizing some of my crafting things. While I’ll be keeping my Cricut, embroidery machine, and sewing machine, I don’t need the amount of fabric I’ve accumulated over the last 8-10 years. I don’t need to keep triple on my paints. I think a better place for those types of things would be to donate to the schools.

I’ve come to realize, all the things I thought I needed, wanted and made me happy, they are doing the opposite. They are causing me stress because I don’t know where to start. I feel overwhelmed because not everything has a place. I can fix parts of that by working in my loft and in our bedroom.

As I set out to scale down my possessions, I will ask myself, ‘what purpose does this have in my life and can I live without it?’ Then, I’ll reflect on the following:

“Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens. If you have them, you have to take care of them! There is great freedom in simplicity of living. It is those who have enough but not too much who are the happiest.”-Peace Pilgrim.

Time to determine what is an unnecessary and a necessary possession. Not everything is meant to be a keeper. Just my opinion.

And that’s what I have for you today. My thoughts and my opinion on the things we have. Ultimately we must ask, do they bring us happiness or are they a burden? If you’re on the fence, perhaps they are leaning more towards a burden. But wait! Don’t go donating those questionable items or tossing them away. Hold onto them. Put them somewhere and in 6 months, go back to whatever it is. If you haven’t thought about it in that time, well, maybe someone else would benefit from it, but if it’s something you are always thinking of, maybe pull it out of it’s place and display it for a time. If it’s bringing you joy and happiness, it’s a keeper, but if it’s still causing you stress or anxiety, then again, maybe it would find more happiness in a new home.

Those are my thoughts. Thank you for reading and don’t forget, Love Life++ Hugs.