Do you really need an avocado slicer?
If your life seems crowded and your budget feels tight, take a look at the stuff you own. How much are you spending on items that rarely -- if ever -- get used?
Recently, an executive from GE sold her home and almost everything in it. In a post called "Wishing you a simpler New Year" on the LinkedIn networking site, Beth Comstock wrote that she'd started to think her possessions owned her.
It took more than a year to divest, based on a single, simple rule. "What was left had to be extraordinary or essential," says Comstock, the company's CMO.
A cynic would say that a high-level exec's decision to embrace voluntary simplicity would simply mean fewer things for the housekeeper to dust.
After all, a wealthy person has the option of simplifying -- and of re-buying all that stuff if it turns out she misses it. Someone with little money doesn't have many options: It's simplify or die.
I'd have said that myself if I hadn't recently seen an odd little implement in a relative's kitchen.
It looked like a miniature tennis racket with vertical-only strings. When I asked what the tool was for, she replied, "It's an avocado slicer."
This is not a rich woman. In fact, she's a single working mother. But her mom works in a high-end housewares store, where an employee discount, plus last-chance clearance prices equal a lot of high-end, at times perplexing gifts.
Specifically, I'm not sure this relative even eats avocados.
A friend whose marriage ended was sorting through all sorts of left-behind kitchen implements: garlic press, multiple graters, numerous knives, a wine bottle stopper. His ex-wife had no use for them, either. Yet they'd managed to acquire some pretty specialized doodads over the years. How did they get there? Were they used more than once or twice -- or ever?
What we need and what we don't
We've just come through the holidays, a time when a lot of offbeat gadgets are given as gifts. If you've always wanted a countertop grill or a cake-pop maker, wait a few months -- such items will wind up as real steals at thrift stores and yard sales.
As for other items given for holidays, birthdays, weddings and anniversaries, keep this fun fact in mind: The self-storage industry generated more than $22 billion in revenue in 2011.
I forced myself to divest of a lot of belongings before moving to Alaska last October. That wasn't easy. In a post called "What I learned from decluttering," I noted that getting rid of things such as old birthday cards and small gifts from friends initially felt like "a loss of self."
How have I managed without those things? Quite well, thanks. Once I got the hang of letting go I felt that there was a lot more room in my life as well as in my house. I simply have to remind myself that I don't have to own something in order to appreciate it.
I also don't need an avocado slicer. In fact, I'm wondering how many of us really do.
Readers: What have you bought/been given that you didn't use as much as you thought you would, or didn't use at all?
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Clearing out the clutter is definitely one of the many ways to improve your quality of living. Having more free space is better than less. Whenever I come upon something that's been stashed away for years, I look at it and ask myself, "this has been here for X number of years and I never used it. What are the chances that I'll use it in the next X years?". My answer is almost always zero chance, so I do the only thing logical, I get rid of it.
Love your articles, thanks for the push..doing de cluttering right now. Seems as though the Idea of Relativity is. While I m getting rid of business guidelines from 2006, I m making room in my head as well as my drawer, my life with less stuff and more meaningful take always...don't dwell on small items, things that won't matter in a year, keep inventory clean, travel light costs less. time flies very quickly
You have a choice; choose wisely
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