Cleaning Out

There was a point when we were cleaning out all of our stuff, nearly everything was gone and we said, “we should have done this a year ago”.

Our house was cluttered with stuff we didn’t use.

We weren’t some sort of pack rats.  Our house looked just like most houses.

When I went through my clothes, I must have had 30 t-shirts.  Literally.

What the hell did I need that many t-shirts for?  Even if I had worn one every day I could have gone for a month without doing laundry.

Melissa had several nice dresses.  We dressed up a total of twice each year.

We had piles of crap just sitting around that we hadn’t used in months or even years.

Whether you think it’s worthwhile to get rid of all of your stuff for spiritual reasons or not, consider doing it for mere practicality if nothing else.

Sure, if you’re into it then keep your bed, and your couch, and your television.  But look around the house at all of the things that, if you were honest with yourself, you never use.  Or look for ornamental things that in reality aren’t even interesting to look at.

Like most Americans, Melissa and I had packed ourselves in with things that we might need.

I might need two pizza wheels some day, we thought.

Sometime I might need to take 4 casseroles to a potluck.

I might wear that later, it’s a memento – as soon as it fits again.

I might read those books again soon.

That could come back into style in 15 years.

In a lot of ways we were padding ourselves against needing other people.  We didn’t need 4 casserole dishes, but if we ever did we wouldn’t have to ask anyone.

Our friends had just as many books as we did.  In fact, our friends had many of the same books as we did and none of us ever read them again.

But if we did decide to read it we didn’t have to ask anyone.  We didn’t have to venture outside of our box, it was right upstairs stacked on top of another book we might someday read again.

Cleaning out our house was more than just a good way to leave town.  A tiny piece of our mind was attached to every possession we owned, whether we used it or not.

Simplicity isn’t just one of God’s guidelines, it’s also psychologically pleasing.

Man was not made to accumulate stuff.  Man was made to live in community.

Comments

I moved to a bigger house a few months ago.  I am not a packrat at all.  I still had books and things to donate.  After I moved I opened boxes to unpack and I got rid of more books and things.  It’s just crazy.  I read once that a woman used to keep a concrete number of books on her shelf so she had to think of what she really wanted to keep.

Good luck on your trip.  After my husband and I got married we didn’t have much $$$ so for our honeymoon we camped in southern Utah for a weekend (in a small tent).  It was a trip I will never forget.  We had fancier trips during our marriage but that one is my favorite and most memorable. 

Carolina

WOW.  Good on you.  We took the contents of a 3000 square foot house, detached garage, and regular garage, accumulated over 27 years and condensed it down into a 10x20 storage unit.  Not too bad for a couple of pack rats.  We’re now living our dream, traveling, seeing the country and LIVING life, not subsidizing a lifestyle we’d grown tired of.  Have fun, maybe we’ll see you around.

We were amazed at the stuff we had.