When it comes to stress-inducing events, moving ranks right up there with tax audits and root canals.  By the time you read this, I will have just completed my 16th move - given I lived in one house for 10 years, that's 15 moves in 24 years.  And that doesn't even begin to take into consideration all the satellite apartments and hotel suites I called 'home' while working on the road for 10 of those 24 years.

Here's the good news - I am an expert packer and can count on one hand the number of things lost or broken in all those moves.  The bad news? I have way too much stuff and the older I get the less I want of it.

 

As a society it seems we've been sold a bill of commercialized goods (pun intended).  The phrases "Keep up with the Joneses", "Buy now, pay later", and "New and Improved" were all coined to condition us into believing we need more, bigger and better material wealth.

Don't believe me?  Just look at the proliferation of storage facilities.  When our homes are too full and we can no longer park in the garage because it's become a closet, then off we go to pack even more stuff into a rented space so we can pay to save the things we don't use.  Why? Why? Why?

It is so easy to accumulate stuff.  Often we go shopping when we're bored or lonely or because we've been lured into thinking we need something when in fact we do not.  Once we get all these inanimate objects we form attachments to them and those attachments, whether we realize it or not, create a suffocating environment.

 
A few years ago, a friend told me she was on a one-year non-buying sabbatical.  She refused to buy anything except food and general necessities.  No clothes, no jewelry, no knick-knacks, nothing.  I ran into her a year and a half later and asked how her sabbatical went.  She reported that not only had she saved a ton of money, but she finally realized she already had enough stuff and was continuing her non-buying ways indefinitely. 

 

Now, we're not advocating you never spend money, but when you do, take a moment to reflect on what you're spending, why you're spending it, and whether or not this particular item is truly needed. Or better, make a vow to discard two items for every new one so you can begin to declutter your life.

 

Don't wait for your next move, find time to take inventory around your own home now - what haven't you used in forever?  Do you really need to hang onto it?  Might someone else benefit from having it?  If so, donate to someone in need or to your favorite charity.   

 

And as the Holidays approach and you're thinking about gift ideas, perhaps you will consider giving something that doesn't fit in a box so you can do your part to help others reduce clutter. 

 

The very best gifts, as surely you know, are the ones that create memories through action rather than a standard wrapped package.  When we spend time with someone or make their life a little easier somehow, that is an ever-lasting gift and one that doesn't need to be dusted, packed or moved.  

As for me, I discarded a lot of stuff when I was packing and now, as I diligently unpack, I am ruthlessly discarding more.

 

Even for me, releasing attachments is challenging, yet it is ultimately rewarding because, at the end of the day, this is the reality: