Perhaps I will become a Vagabond Consultant in my new life. However, this blueprint is free to my readers. Enjoy!
First, you must work on your mindset. Paring down possessions must be a thing of necessity. Moving several times is the easiest way to do it. Once things are in boxes they become invisible. And, once they have been in boxes for over 6 months, they become unnecessary. The trick is to put them in the boxes saying, "I don't need these right now." Then, DON'T OPEN THE BOX! 6 months later, you take the unopened box to Goodwill and walk away with your receipt.
If you are not moving, you may not have the impetus to box things up. In that case, you need to find something else to give that necessary shove. Whatever your motivation, it needs to feel urgent and imminent. Do you have a new career that requires an office space? Do you need the money that renting a room would generate? Is your mother coming to live with you? Are you going to live with her?
These would be positive ways to effect the change. Or at any rate, they are proactive responses to life events like retirement, aging, unemployment. However, sometimes you just snap. You quit your job, you divorce your partner, you have a breakdown. (In my case, you do all three.) In these cases, the temptation is to walk away. And that is a viable alternative. But most of us don't have what it takes to walk away from a life, which is what the possessions represent. Sooner or later, you'll need to deal with possessions as well as emotions.
All this is just to say, you need the motivation. Just feeling overwhelmed by "stuff" is not enough. For 10 years, I wanted to create a studio and de-clutter my life. But the motivation was not there. Other projects always took priority. There never seemed to be enough time, even after I was laid off. Also, some of the stuff was not mine. There was a powerful push-back from D, who has hoarding in his blood. He wanted to keep things and to acquire more.
So, the other thing you need to do is get stakeholders on board. You must motivate others as well as yourself.
Finally, once you've established the mindset and coerced or jettisoned recalcitrant partners, you need to accept a basic fact: this will all take a lot more time, energy, and determination than you expect. It's taken me 2 years to reach my current state of living in one small room, and I'm not done yet.
Herewith, my trajectory.
First, you must work on your mindset. Paring down possessions must be a thing of necessity. Moving several times is the easiest way to do it. Once things are in boxes they become invisible. And, once they have been in boxes for over 6 months, they become unnecessary. The trick is to put them in the boxes saying, "I don't need these right now." Then, DON'T OPEN THE BOX! 6 months later, you take the unopened box to Goodwill and walk away with your receipt.
If you are not moving, you may not have the impetus to box things up. In that case, you need to find something else to give that necessary shove. Whatever your motivation, it needs to feel urgent and imminent. Do you have a new career that requires an office space? Do you need the money that renting a room would generate? Is your mother coming to live with you? Are you going to live with her?
These would be positive ways to effect the change. Or at any rate, they are proactive responses to life events like retirement, aging, unemployment. However, sometimes you just snap. You quit your job, you divorce your partner, you have a breakdown. (In my case, you do all three.) In these cases, the temptation is to walk away. And that is a viable alternative. But most of us don't have what it takes to walk away from a life, which is what the possessions represent. Sooner or later, you'll need to deal with possessions as well as emotions.
All this is just to say, you need the motivation. Just feeling overwhelmed by "stuff" is not enough. For 10 years, I wanted to create a studio and de-clutter my life. But the motivation was not there. Other projects always took priority. There never seemed to be enough time, even after I was laid off. Also, some of the stuff was not mine. There was a powerful push-back from D, who has hoarding in his blood. He wanted to keep things and to acquire more.
So, the other thing you need to do is get stakeholders on board. You must motivate others as well as yourself.
Finally, once you've established the mindset and coerced or jettisoned recalcitrant partners, you need to accept a basic fact: this will all take a lot more time, energy, and determination than you expect. It's taken me 2 years to reach my current state of living in one small room, and I'm not done yet.
Herewith, my trajectory.
I was unable to pay the mortgage in my Portland house, so I decided to rent the upstairs. That meant removing 50% of our possessions. I had an estate sale and netted around $900, including the piano. I pulled out the stuff I wanted to keep and put it in one room and left town while the estate sale professional took care of the rest. There were some casualties, of course, and some under-priced things, but it was done.
A few months later I got a job and moved to ABQ. I boxed up the books. One box came with me, 2 more were to come with friends, and the rest were to go in the attic. I did the same with dishes, craft supplies, memorabilia, clothes, CDs, DVDs, art. Some came with me, most was boxed up. Furniture was either used by tenants or put in the studio/shed. It was both harder and easier than the estate sale. What was left was stuff I wanted to keep (hard), but I wasn't telling myself that it was going away for good (easy).
When I returned a year later, knowing that I was going to sell the house and remain in a small apartment in NM, I put most of the memorabilia in my aunt's garage, along with some family furniture (like the immigrant trunk and grandma's spinning wheel.) The dishes and art went into other friends' basements, and I mailed clothes and some memorabilia to myself. I did not open up the boxed books, but the rest I did, and that was agony.
Some friends took a few things. The books went to Goodwill. Some furniture is still sitting around the house, awaiting disposal. And, of course, D had retrieved his boxes, which constituted a good half of the stuff.
I still have to deal with the stuff in basements. First, I must accept that I'm a vagabond. Then I will ask my friends to have a yard sale or bring my stuff to Goodwill or sell it on Craigslist. And I'll have my aunt send letters and journals and pix: a box a month. I'll scan them and then dispose of them.
It's a mind game process, for sure. But it's well worth it. I just spent the weekend in ABQ, in my old casita/studio apt. It felt so Zen, empty of all the stuff I had crammed into it. That's where I want to be, eventually. Possessions just make me tired.
A few months later I got a job and moved to ABQ. I boxed up the books. One box came with me, 2 more were to come with friends, and the rest were to go in the attic. I did the same with dishes, craft supplies, memorabilia, clothes, CDs, DVDs, art. Some came with me, most was boxed up. Furniture was either used by tenants or put in the studio/shed. It was both harder and easier than the estate sale. What was left was stuff I wanted to keep (hard), but I wasn't telling myself that it was going away for good (easy).
When I returned a year later, knowing that I was going to sell the house and remain in a small apartment in NM, I put most of the memorabilia in my aunt's garage, along with some family furniture (like the immigrant trunk and grandma's spinning wheel.) The dishes and art went into other friends' basements, and I mailed clothes and some memorabilia to myself. I did not open up the boxed books, but the rest I did, and that was agony.
Some friends took a few things. The books went to Goodwill. Some furniture is still sitting around the house, awaiting disposal. And, of course, D had retrieved his boxes, which constituted a good half of the stuff.
I still have to deal with the stuff in basements. First, I must accept that I'm a vagabond. Then I will ask my friends to have a yard sale or bring my stuff to Goodwill or sell it on Craigslist. And I'll have my aunt send letters and journals and pix: a box a month. I'll scan them and then dispose of them.
It's a mind game process, for sure. But it's well worth it. I just spent the weekend in ABQ, in my old casita/studio apt. It felt so Zen, empty of all the stuff I had crammed into it. That's where I want to be, eventually. Possessions just make me tired.
Yes. I am a vagabond.
Vagabond high fives!
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