It’s hard to let go of things. If it was easy we wouldn’t have a clutter problem.
So what makes it so hard?
One thing – Emotions!
We let our emotions do our thinking for us. And as most of us know our emotions can’t always be trusted to make clear and easy decisions.
Our emotions usually want to claim an item as being much more important than it really is. It wants to attach itself to the item and hold on for dear life.
Our emotions tell us that if we let go of the item we’ll lose the emotional attachment towards it. If we lose the emotional attachment then we fear we will lose all feelings and memories about the item. This goes for good and bad memories.
That doesn’t make any sense. It’s an illogical way of thinking.
Maybe it’s time for a little logical thinking to take place.
A good way to change this kind of thinking is to ask yourself some specific questions about the item. This will help clear up your thinking so you can decide if you should let go of the item or keep it.
1. Does the item bring up good feelings and/or memories?
- Yes – Then make sure you are displaying the item in a way to bring about those good feelings on a regular basis.
- No – If it brings up bad feelings or memories why are you keeping it?
2. Is the item useful to me in the present?
- Yes – Does it have it’s own “home” so you can find it when you need or want it? If not you need to find it a home.
- No – Are you keeping it because you think it will be useful in the near future (see next question)? If not then why are you keeping it?
3. Is the item going to be useful to me in the near future?
- Yes – The near future is a very vague time frame. When do you expect the future to become the present for this item? Do you have a reasonable time frame set? Six to twelve months or six to twelve years?
- No – If you are keeping something for the far off future you need to decide if it is worth the space to store it for so long or is it something that can be easily replaced when it is needed at that time?
“Things are just things until you make them so important in your mind that you just can’t let them go.” ~Janice Scissors
If you don’t let your emotions do your thinking for you then it won’t be so hard to let go of the things that have bad memories, aren’t useful anymore to you, or don’t make your life better in some way.
Make some decisions today to let go of the unimportant things. You’ll be glad you did!
To a lighter load along the way.
Janice