neadods | Dealing With the Stuff

"It's not first and foremost about the stuff. That's way too superficial. It's about changing your relationship to your stuff. It's about keeping the things that make sense for your life - your REAL life; not a fantasy of what was or what could be. Stuff is secondary to who you are and that needs to be reflected in your home and your life."
-- Peter Walsh, It's All Too Much

That paragraph right there is why I sit down and listen to this audio book every time I'm making a big point of decluttering. It's one thing to declaim "Have nothing that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful," or to remind myself that "You're not that person anymore and it's okay to not be that person anymore" when looking at things that used to be important to me. (Technology, fashion, tastes, even fandoms have changed over the decades. But it was a hard lesson to learn that I'm allowed to change with them, y'know? Even fandoms I've stayed in have filled my life with stuff that doesn't please me the way possessing it did when I got it 25 years ago.)

Walsh's bottom line is even clearer and more relentless: What is the life I want to have RIGHT NOW? Does this item fit into it? If not, OUT. No excuses, no rationalizations, no wibbling. No matter how often I re-listen, I won't stop recommending it.