We as humans collect a lot of stuff. That stuff grows more and more as each year passes. before you know it you have a room stuffed full of tchotchkes knickknacks and assorted thingamabobs. Perhaps you were an avid traveler so you have 23 different collector spoons from the different stats you had visited. Your husband liked to collect the assorted shot glasses from the same place you got your spoons. Your mother gave you her collector plates on top of your dad’s baseball cap collection. You have a DVD stash that would make the academy envious. plus gifts and 25 years of magazines that have one recipe in them that sounds divine. You see how things build up. We are the original pack rats. We have huge coffee cans full of assorted nuts and bolts, A box or closet that is full of assorted cords and cables for devices you don’t even have anymore, but some may! Then we have a drawer in the kitchen dedicated to just junk. We all have one. That clutter and disorganization can get int he way of normal day to day life.
Why? Because we see stuff and we have been taught that we don’t throw away something that is valuable. We have taken that thought and extended it. Now it’s for things that might sometime down the way be valuable. We get a sense of scarcity and want to make sure we have enough resources. That is where we get ourselves into trouble. Many of us are still carrying the warning from our great or even great-great-grandmother about waste not, want not. That is because they experienced depression and those were some of the very worst hard times around western Oklahoma. Then add on the effects of the dustbowl that had some of its roots start in Shattuck, OK. Now you are adding pain to that misery and you can see why many people started packing up their meager belongings and heading west.
When we do without it causes some major stress in our heads. We experience the sense of scarcity by not having and then so we don’t have to experience it anymore we hold to everything associated with our pain to keep that pain away. So you will hold on to every safety pin you can find if you needed one and couldn’t find it.
Now there are those who go way beyond what a healthy human’s mind will go. These people will not throw away trash out of fear that they may not have a used napkin. You see the mind can go overboard if we don’t get rid of old stuff. This is where you get hoarders. Yeah, hoarders often are found in the senior population. Yet there are those who are not hoarders and actually just let life get away from them and they just have a whole lot of stuff. Thats what We are talking about today
Hoarding vs Cluttered
There are two types of people that have lots of clutter there are hoarders and then there are the regular folks who just have a bad case of S.A.S. or Stuff Acquisition Syndrome. Let’s break each of these down for some more clarity.
Hoarding
Hoarding is an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder where the person in question collects huge amounts of stuff that has little to no value. Ketchup packets, napkins, Sheets of rusty tin, every magazine they come across. It is often hard to determine a hoarder till you see their home and you don’t see rooms you have passages through all the junk and trash from the front door to the bedroom. From the bedroom to a particular seat in the living room. They have a kitchen but can’t use it because stuff is stacked up everywhere,
Hoarders are people who can’t throw things away. They have a thought loop error that keeps them on the lookout for stuff then they decide that they need it even if it is a used napkin It might still have some use. There are a lot of health issues that can crop up with hoarding. There are mental issues that can crop up like depression. Because they know what they are doing isn’t normal and they are overwhelmed by their own actions. Yet they are also embarrassed and so they cut off loved ones from visiting. They hide from society. This is why many times people known throughout a neighborhood just fade away. They are often locked in a mental struggle of what to do but don’t know how to fix it. Yet the very act of cutting themselves off from society is what brings on the depression.
Then there is the physical effect of hoarding. Often a hoarder can’t keep their domicile clean so rodents move, thanks to the inability to dispose of the trash. So you get the diseases that can come from breathing in the urine and fecal matter.
Clutter
Clutter is nothing but a very nice way to say it is messy. Yet clutter isn’t the same as hoarding. First off clutter is just from someone who is typically messy and disorganized. The huge difference is that most people who are messy will turn around and spend a day getting the problem area fixed. they will throw away the bags of Mcdonald’s wrappers. They won’t hold on to them “Just in Case” If you explain to them why it doesn’t serve them to hold on to that can of screws they will be able to toss them away or donate them if they are things they don’t care to have anymore.
Most of the time cluttered people struggle with the laziness of actually getting up and putting stuff away. tI am a clutttered person. I struggle with actually cleaning the house. It does get messy yet we don’t have piles and piles of just random useless things. I do hold on to a lot of stuff, but why?
Why do we hold on to stuff?
If you think about it there are only a few items that are very important to our life. That is food, water, shelter, and a mate so we can reproduce. All the other stuff isn’t really needed.
Our Thoughts
If it’s not needed when why do we collect so much extra stuff? That would be from our thoughts. We think we need it and because we think we need our emotions to kick up we need to alleviate the emotional stress that is formed. So We think we need food we will get the feeling of hunger going on in our body. If we think we need that Mcdonald’s hamburger then we will go out and get it. If we think we need to hold on to that nut and bolt then we will find a place to put the nut and bolt. Even though when we finish it leaves our mind until we find another nut or bolt to put into the can.
You see we hold on to junk and other items out of a need to feel we are doing something good. Doesn’t mean we are doing good but we feel as if we are. The hoarder feels better by holding on to that taco bell hot sauce packet. while in reality, they have 413 of the very same packets in a box in the next room
Sentiment
One of the thoughts we have is related to the emotional connection we have over when we received the object in question. So it may have been your grandfather’s old wrench set or your mother’s collector plates. The only person they matter to is you. the wrenches may be complete or they may not. You may know that your mom adored her collection of porcelain plates that she got from collecting enough S&H Green stamps. Yet when you look at it closely you see that yeah the feeling you have for those plates is that it is one of nostalgia that is all. Are they valuable? To you yes. To others? no. A good way to understand this is to go try to sell a bunch of books to a book reseller. You may get 5 dollars for the old book, and you ask them why. Their response is often it’s not a collectors edition. The limited editions are valuable while the items that were mass-produced can become valuable. However, that takes a very long time.
Scarcity
Another reason people collect and hold onto stuff is that they have a scarcity mind about that item. this is why we collect power cords. we often find that we needed a power cord and couldn’t find one. So when we find one we want to be useful and provide people with it. Especially the proprietary charging cables that we use to have back in the early 2000s.If you lost it you know the problems you were about to have.
We hold on to stuff because we don’t think we will have it when we need it. If you examine what you thinking you will see that if you do not have a use for it in a few months then good chance that you won’t need it at all. Yet this is what decluttering is and what holds us back
Just Gotta Have It
Another reason is that we just have to have it. Many people blame our system of capitalism for why we have so much stuff in our homes, and it could be the effectiveness of marketing. It could also be that we realize that we made a bad choice on a product and we do not want to be seen as wasteful. So we buy it and when it doesn’t work instead of throwing it in the trash or recycler we just put it in the top of the closet and leave it.
How do you clean your house?
The best place to start is by examining why you are
If you need help with decluttering your house a great place to start is with a decluttering coach. Yes they have them and they are awesome
If you wanted to know where to look you can look at The Life Coach School they have a coaches directory that will help you find a coach for just about any occasion.
However, if you are not sure who to look for then there is Amelia Kennedy, She’s a Clutter Coach and Pro Organizer or you might look to Margo Krekeler and she helps women over the age of 50 to declutter
Little at a time
You can also do it a little at a time. You may start with your closet and all the clothes you don’t wear in a year you give away to United Way
Perhaps you can also just decide anything you don’t use in a year needs to be thrown away. that takes a bit of thought work but it does allow fo you to clear out the clutter pretty efficiently.
Hire a service
Now if you do not have the time or don’t have the desire to declutter grandma’s house then you can always hire a decluttering service. Above All Home Care does this very thing and can get the excess thrown out and the essentials taken care of in a very short amount of time. If you are interested then please Contact Us and we can see how we can help out of friends in Western Oklahoma.