Yesterday a friend texted me and told me she had no food in her house. I kind of groaned. I had just been looking at my bank account and was feeling stressed at the thought of stretching the amount of money I had to meet our family’s needs. My first thought was, I do not have enough money to go buy her groceries. I’m going to be stretched as it is to buy food for my own family. I texted her back the name of a food kitchen in our neighborhood that would be having a free marketplace in a couple days. She made plans to drop by my house in a little while and so I got up, grabbed a bag and went and looked in my pantry. I started filling up the bag and then went and got a second bag and filled it up too. By the time I was done, I had put up enough food for several days for her family and really had not put any stress on our family by doing so. I hadn’t realized that I had that much food laying around my house.
Before the text, my mindset had been, We have NO FOOD in the house! I NEED to go grocery shopping! In reality, even after giving away two bags of groceries, I still had enough food in the house that if some world catastrophe struck and we were trapped, I could still feed our family for a couple weeks. Of course, I wouldn’t have any fresh fruit and vegetables or milk, and I’d run out of meat pretty quick, but we could eat homemade cornbread and bread, and beans and other nutritious food that would serve us just fine in an emergency. (And no, I’m not a prepper.)
This summer I moved out of my bedroom. I filled up a canvas bag of clothes and a couple personal items and I didn’t go back into my room all summer. I lived all summer with one bag. I wanted my room back, but did I NEED any of the stuff in my room to live? Nope.
This past weekend my husband and I spent a weekend at a cabin without the kids. I took groceries and cooked our meals while we were there. The cabin was stocked with everything you were supposed to need to cook. They had really limited options though. The entire weekend I cooked using one wobbly knife, one spatula, and one big spoon. I missed my utensil drawer back home that has a million knives and million spoons. But, I didn’t NEED all those utensils. They just make life a bit easier.
Today, I have been looking around my house. I realized that though I have a large cupboard filled with pots and pans and cooking sheets and baking pans and serving bowls, I don’t use all of them. In fact, on a regular basis, I only use about half of my pots and pans. I have a storage place on top of my cabinets that is full of interesting serving platters and jars and fancy dishes. I don’t think I’ve touched them in two years.
I have a hallway that has a large bookcase full of all my homeschooling books and materials that I used during my twelve year stint of homeschooling. I have been unsure of what to do with all these materials. I have tried giving them away, but no one is interested. I hate selling things, with a passion, so getting on ebay to sell my stuff is not a viable option. While I would like to keep all my interesting books that the kids love to read and look at, I have no need to keep boring, half-used workbooks. And there are a lot of the books that really aren’t that interesting. In short, I have an entire hallway filled with things I don’t NEED and I don’t even really WANT.
In fact, I have a feeling that a good fifty percent of the belongings in my house are things that we don’t NEED and don’t even WANT.
I am finding that belongings and things are actually a pretty heavy burden. You have to clean them and organize them. They make your living space feel more crowded. They complicate your life more. Busily managing your stuff takes time away from other more important things. But, it’s an addiction. We are a consumer-driven society. We are always on the lookout for things to buy. More things to own. Commercials feed this. We see something shiny and bright and new on the screen and we think, wow, I NEED one of those. And we use the word NEED a lot. I NEED some new clothes. I NEED some new shoes. I NEED new furniture. I NEED that new gadget. I NEED a new book. (That one is my go-to statement.)
Maybe it would help us if we stopped using the word NEED and replaced it with WANT. It would be more honest. Cause really, our NEEDS are very basic. We need food and water, shelter, clothing, loving relationships. Our WANTS are a lot more complicated.
I WANT to dress at the same level as my peers so I don’t stand out. I WANT things that make my life more convenient and easy. I WANT to be entertained 24hrs a day. I WANT something new to boost my mood and cheer me up.
I don’t know if there is anything inherently wrong with wanting things. But when those things start to take over your life and actually make your quality of life worse, it’s probably a good idea to regroup. Make yourself differentiate. Do I NEED this or do I just WANT this? Is adding another object to my life going to make my life better or just more complicated? Do I really want to have to clean up this much stuff every day?
I have decided that the answer to those questions is NO. I don’t need this stuff, and in fact, I don’t want to clean up all this stuff. I don’t want to have to keep taking care of all this stuff. So, I am initiating The Great Heneise House Clean Out.
Here’s to making life more simple and getting all those WANTS back under control.
Life With Esther 