Saying “Goodbye” to Material Possessions

Recently I began to see an error in the way which I was living my life.  I had spent a lot of energy and money in pursuit of material possessions.  I invested a great deal of time collecting DVDs, toys, books and magazines, and pop culture memorabilia from the 80′s like Garbage Pail Kid cards.  Then I experienced a monumental shift in my way of thinking.  I woke up one day and had no idea what in the world I was doing with all of this junk.  I decided that it was time to get rid of everything which was not creating some sort of value in my life.

I had a storage unit full of stuff, DVD towers overflowing with movies, plastic storage containers full of random things, objects hiding in corners, in cabinets, closets and drawers.  Everywhere I looked there were things that were useless to me.  Why in the world did I need to have a George Foreman grill?  I used it once, but on a whim I felt as though it was a life necessity.  I couldn’t live without it.  Now I couldn’t live with it.

My girlfriend thought I had lost my mind.  Here I was in the midst of a life-altering shift in perception with no understanding of why I suddenly had a completely opposite outlook on life.  Nothing in the house was safe.  I began questioning every item I owned, and then every item my girlfriend owned.  “Do we need 3 crock pots?  Two of them are identical, couldn’t we give at least one of them to Goodwill?”

Adjusting to the shift in my thinking was difficult.  There is a certain amount of emotional value invested into every object a person owns.  We have a connection to these objects.  Getting rid of the item means getting rid of that bond.  Sometimes that is incredibly difficult.  An example of this would be a gift that you recieved for Christmas or a birthday.  You really never cared much for it, but you can’t get rid of it for the guilt you feel in doing so.  Even though that item brings no value to your life, and even though you don’t want or need it, there is still an emotional attachment to that item because it was a gift.

What I am having a hard time convincing myself of getting rid of are my Kevin Spacey DVDs.  He is my favorite actor and I have almost all of the movies he has been in.  The problem is that they just sit there, collecting dust, taking up space.  There is a possibility that I will watch them again, but that is not the reason that they are still here.  I do not keep them around for their future potential of providing me with entertainment, but rather as a material indication of my affection for Kevin Spacey.  I would be no less of a fan owning zero DVDs than I am owning all his movies.  Even though I know this, I cannot convince myself to sell them.  I have an emotional bond with them.  They are a representation of my personality, and it is as if I would be giving up a part of my identity as an individual.

Throughout the process of eliminating the clutter in my apartment, I’ve come to the conclusion that sometimes it is hard to say “goodbye” to material possessions, especially those which you have applied a great amount of personal value to.  I’ve also come to the conclusion that sometimes it is necessary to eliminate some of these things in order to to get my priorities in line.  If my dream to be able to travel on a whim is ever to come true, I won’t have much room for 500 DVDs and a ton of other random things that will require being hauled along with me.