No one likes being told what to do. We stand up for our rights to independent thoughts, beliefs, and actions: "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." We are quick to exert ourselves when someone interferes with these rights. We refuse to bow to any other human who tries to usurp our blood-bought rights to all our personal and national freedoms.
However, there are two situations in which we voluntarily surrender our rights:
1. We voluntarily allow THINGS to get in the way of our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
2. We don't set limits on our own desires, our acquiring habits, or our keeping habits.
We CHOOSE what we allow into our homes: no one is holding you at gunpoint to keep the unused espresso machine or two closets full of clothing. No one is forcing you to keep your garage in a constant state of chaos. No one guides your hands in the discount store as you pile stuff and more stuff into your cart, then bring all that junk home. No one forces you to sign the 90 days same as cash contract for the bedroom furniture you bought but didn't really need (your old set worked and looked just fine).
Don Aslett, the Grandfather of the dejunking movement, said in his book, Not For Packrats Only, "By the time we emerge from the innocence of childhood, we firmly believe that things make us happy*." He continues to explain how we believe that, "things will even somehow change something inside of us," making us better, more beautiful, stronger, smarter, healthier. We want others to approve of us, to look up to us, to want to BE us. We want to be "cool."
THINGS DO NOT MAKE US HAPPY. Things are enhancements and supports for living out the life Christ died to give you! Who you are, and especially your happiness, will never depend upon anything you can purchase.
Which brings us to the second point: we don't (or haven't) set limits on ourselves.
If we wish to live a genuine life, vital, dynamic, always learning, always seeking growth, pursuing happiness as we define it for ourselves, then we must set limits on our desires and our habits as they relate to stuff. We can not allow what we own to define our sense of SELF, or our WORTH in this world.
Who we are has nothing to do with stuff. It never has, and it never will. Only when you GET IT--that who you are is never defined by material possessions--will you permanently free yourself from the bondage of thinking your happiness depends upon having, or acquiring, or keeping some material object.
You are enough, just as you are. You don't need any THING to determine your value. You are priceless.
You have been limiting your growth and happiness by trying to buy and acquire your way into feeling happy and worthwhile. Instead of limiting your growth and happiness, set limits on how much you want to buy, how much you do buy, and how much you keep. Get comfortable with "enough" instead of "more! more! more!"
"Enough" is a huge step towards true personal freedom and contentment.
* Aslett, Don. Not For Packrats Only. Plume Books. New York, NY: 1991. Pg.8.
