Thirteen months ago, I started a month-long experiment called Subtraction. I would find one personal item I owed and get rid of it. I’d throw it out, give it away, or donate it to a thrift store. But somehow I’d get rid of it.
Then I’d repeat that process each day, through the entire month of February. Some days seemed pretty easy. Others were harder. The plan, though, was to blog about it, sharing the experience with you here.
But I made a mistake.
Instead of getting rid of things each day, I just made a pile. I planned to actually get rid of it all at once at the end of the month. It seemed like a good idea at the time. More efficient, I told myself.
Famous last words.
As it turned out, instead of actually getting rid of all that stuff, I just ended up with a pile. And then I didn’t want to get rid of it. I loved that pile.
Maybe I’ll use some of this stuff, I thought.
Turns out, I did. I was right. I did end up wearing some of the clothes again. I did use a few of the other items from the pile.
But that wasn’t the point. The point was never that I had a bunch of stuff I would never use. The point was that I had a bunch of stuff, and I wanted to pare down.
So here we are, me and my conflicting desires, a year later.
I got rid of that pile this weekend.
Last February when I was getting rid of things, I mean putting them in a pile, I started a post about it. The post listed, by day, each of the items I subtracted. That scarf I had all the way through Korea. That blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
The problem with the post is that it made me want to keep that stuff. It made me want to remember it.
I got rid of that post over the weekend too.
So here we are, you and me… and a couple lessons I’m reflecting on, and putting here so I can come back and remind myself of them in the future:
- You will use stuff. Doesn’t mean you need it. Doesn’t mean you should keep it.
- Don’t trust yourself. Don’t think you’re going to make good decisions in the future. You’re going to make bad decisions. If you can make a good decision now, take advantage of that instead of assuming you’ll still make that good decision in the future. Or, put another way, don’t make a pile.
