I’ve spent the whole day in my basement storage, organizing and disposing of stuff. I was surprised that I had so much stuff; I don’t even remember some of it anymore. It was quite an exercise, but despite the effort and long hours of discarding my stuff, I am happy with what I accomplished. My storage area is now organized, and I created more space. It is great to see the clutter go away! It is incredible to realize that it only took a couple of days to get rid of all the non-essential things I amassed over the years. Imagine the effort, time, and money spent acquiring those items, gone in a matter of hours of decluttering. Of course, I felt wasteful by doing that, but those items were bothering me because they were taking up so much space in my home, and I always think of when and how I could use them.
How about you? Do you have items that you no longer use and just collecting dust? I am sure that, just like me, those items had use when you acquired them but when they no longer served their purpose, it was time to put them away.
As I was putting away stuff, I asked myself, “Why do we end up with more than what we need?”.
Human nature consists of inclinations that lead us to value material things, wealth, and luxury faster than we learn to value other things. This is because of the basic human needs to attain security, social status, and acceptance. Sounds familiar? Yes, it is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; these needs are as old as the first human.
Let’s take a look at Zug.
Zug is a pre-historic man. He needed to hunt to be able to eat. At first, he probably used his bare hands to pursue, but it was not the most effective way. He had to come close to
his prey. It was dangerous. Once he had captured his prey, he needed to take out the meat still with his hands. Satisfying his basic need to eat most probably took him the whole day. Zug had to find a way to make this process easier.
Zug found a stone, chiseled it, and attached it to a piece of bamboo. Now, he has a tool to make his hunting efficient and satisfy his hunger in a shorter period. Zug is amazed by his first tool and felt the need to create different tools to feed himself efficiently. Now that he can hunt effectively, Zug has food and can also make clothing to keep him warm. Zug is now motivated by the efficiencies he is making in his life and continues to build more.
Zug now has time to spare, so he comes up with non-basic things to fill his days.
Present Day
Our accumulation journey started the same way as Zug’s. The things, activities, and people in our lives are products of our basic needs. But as soon as that need was met, we looked for more.
This explains the clutter that I dealt with in my storage room. 😊
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
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