More with less! I remember my grandmother saying this to me. She wasn’t the first to say it, but it was the first time I heard it. It didn’t really sink in back then, but the years have delivered the same message over and over again. Clutter, junk, excess - call it what you want. Most of us have done a pretty good job of crowding ourselves out of our own lives. Have you ever wondered why there is a proliferation of “extra-storage” units popping up all over the place?

Physical clutter leads to emotional clutter. You can buy more bins or find an empty shed to store your stuff, but what do we do when we’ve reached the limits of what our minds can handle?

As Courtney Carver once said, “If your clutter is stressful, prioritize your physical and mental health and let it go.”

Maybe we think our best option is to just ignore it. Maybe we’ve also accumulated a bunch of “some days” along with our other junk. “Yeah, that’s it, I have enough extra days that I will be able to use up and then I will get rid of all of this stuff.” But someday never arrives, or worse, we’ve stockpiled even more of what we don’t need and now we can’t find it anymore.

“Our excessive possessions are not making us happy. Even worse, they take us away from the things that do. Once we let go of the things that don’t matter, we are free to pursue all the things that really do matter.”

Joshua Becker

I think I might be down to about three or four large boxes of stuff these days. Books and trinkets from traveling are my prized possessions. I recently talked about going through my sock drawer, heck, I hardly wear socks anymore. Okay, I do have too many pairs of shoes, so there’s more room I can reclaim. But you know what? It’s liberating once you realize the emotional space you create by getting rid of the physical stuff that no longer serves a purpose in your life.

“What we really need is to realize how little we really need.”

Ashleigh Brilliant

Memories are like stuff too! If my memories had a physical presence in my life then I would need a warehouse, not just a few boxes. I’m blessed with a memory that has taken the place of the need for extra storage space. We can work harder at putting our memories to better use and stop accumulating things that no longer add value to our lives.

As Joshua Becker put it, “We were never meant to live life accumulating stuff. We were meant to live simply enjoying the experiences of life, the people of life, and the journey of life - not the things of life.”

Go ahead, clean house - both physically and mentally. Let go of the thoughts taking up space and preventing you from living your life on your terms. Hear the echo, follow your voice, and live your life by subtracting what you no longer need.

“Clutter isn’t just the stuff in your closet, it’s anything that gets between you and the life you want to be living.”

Peter Walsh

Talk soon…

G