Hello everyone! I always talk about the importance of not shopping rather than decluttering on your
journey towards minimalism, because in my mind it's always better to not add than declutter,
but sometimes you do have to do both. And I think it's especially a lot easier to be a minimalist
with the stuff you keep around you, compared to the stuff you put at someone else's house
or in storage, so that's what we'll be talking about today. For me the first step in taking
responsibility of my staff started at my parents house. And this one has actually started getting
on my nerves! Please stop keeping, discarding and leaving all your stuff at your poor parents
or grandparents house, especially if they're getting elderly and aging. I haven't lived in my
home country Sweden for about 10 years now, which means that anything I have there is most likely
stuff I don't need. I definitely don't use it so in my mind I don't need it. I, like most of us,
had lots of stuff, basically everything I've ever owned in my childhood up to my teenage years in
my dad's house. When I moved abroad I was 18 and I didn't know how long I was going to be abroad for,
and I think many people can relate to that, and so I left all my stuff there because I couldn't bring
it with me when I moved. A few years later and a few moves later however, I realized that I didn't
want to be attached or have responsibility for something that I wasn't in charge over,
or that I couldn't actually get to very easily. I also didn't feel comfortable leaving my dad or
my granddad responsible with my stuff because to be completely honest, I didn't have any plans to
coming and getting them. So I decided to sort of rip the bandage, and declutter it all. And I think
we all need to do this, especially with the stuff we store that take up emotional and physical and
energetic space in other people's homes. I gave a lot of stuff away to my sister, I donated them,
I sold them, I gave a suitcase away to one of my best friends. So now I only have two photo
albums of my mom left in Sweden, but I do want to keep them there, because they take up very
little space and they're not only mine and they are something I want to keep in treasure forever.
And so for me this was a long time ago but I've realized recently that this is a huge issue,
especially for our generation. I also think our parents generation as they become older.
Every single home I've visited in the last like two years, and because we're living on the road
I've been in a lot of homes, it's just full with clutter. And majority of this clutter is actually
not the house owner's stuff. And it seems to be this graph, that the older you get the more of
other people's stuff these people have to carry with them. So I'm mainly blaming adult children
here! I think of course it's okay to store a few items at your parents house, especially
big furniture or valuable pieces that you plan to pick up later, or when you buy your first
apartment or whatever it might be. But I sort of find that we've turned our parents bigger houses
into storage facilities for all of our things that we don't have the energy to sort through, and this
is probably partly because we have emotional attachment to these things, so it's easier to
just leave them, but also that we buy more things than we can possibly store. We can't just offload
our consumerism into someone else's life and just make it their problem. Because basically,
the stuff we store isn't stuff that we allow them to use, right? It's our old CDs and DVDs
and Diaries and keepsakes from college. It's not actually stuff that bring happiness to their life,
and it's not really stuff that we want to fit in our new beautiful homes because it's not that
aesthetic, right. So I say go visit your parents, or go visit your grandparents, or that friend who
is super super nice, and take some of your own stuff with you. Our parents won't be here forever,
so I say go see them and maybe acknowledge that it might be actually a bit of a nuisance
for them to have all your stuff, especially the older that we get. The second thing we need to
take responsibility for is the stuff we bring into this world. I often get the question "how did you
stop shopping?" because I used to be quite the shopping addict. But setting ethical rules for
myself completely changed that. I did this long before going minimalist, but I cut my shopping
down so much that I basically became minimalist. I found this rule to be very practical because
it actually changed something in my life. So my rule was, and still is to this day, that I do not
buy anything new that is unethically made. When I started this rule it only applied to clothing but
now I apply it to most of the areas of my life, and the best thing I like about this rule is that
it's so easy to be motivated by, because it's not about me, it's about other people. And I can't
possibly allow other people to be harmed just because I want something, that to me is the best
possible motivator. This means I stopped shopping from all the big bands, all these huge brands, I
simply don't shop from, because you can't. They're all super super unethical, and it's very easy to
look up. Also, for me the worst thing about these brands is that they are huge brands that make so
much money with such a huge margin so they could easily easily easily switch to organic cotton,
or make their clothes a little bit thicker so that they would last longer, or pay their workers just
you know, a living wage in their country which is way less than you'd think. So when we start
taking responsibility for what we buy and what we create a demand for I think that we're really
starting to go on the right journey on minimalism. And this brings me on to point number three. The
third thing we need to take responsibility for is our stuff at its end of life. When we declutter,
the most most important question to ask ourselves is "where will this item go?". Not only after you
stop using it, but after the next person and the next person stop using it. When the item can no
longer be used, what will happen to it? Can it be recycled?Can it be restored? Is it viable
for anyone to do this? Would anyone apart from you do this? These are all very valid and very
important questions to ask yourself so we don't just declutter everything we have without taking
responsibility for it. Because in my mind I like to look at it as if I'm responsible for every
single item I've ever bought, no matter if that item is with me now or not. I feel like I bear
some sort of responsibility for that item being here. The more we think about these questions
and this mindset the more difficult it becomes to declutter, because of course it's so easy
and almost too easy in my opinion to give your items away to charity shops. It makes us feel
great because it sort of soothes our conscious about buying and our items not going to landfill
because we're better people for not throwing it away. We also clean up our lives and make room for
new things, so we can buy more things. But I sort of think we have to accept our mistakes, right,
because how else are we going to acknowledge that we want to change? If we just declutter everything
we have and give it to a charity shop it's so easy to just buy new stuff to fill those gaps, right,
in just a few months or a few years. However, if we instead stop shopping and hold on to these
items we're sort of forced to take responsibility over our actions. So I like to first check with
my friends and see if any of the items I'm decluttering is something that they want,
and also if something isn't high enough quality to give to my friends you can't give it to an op
shop either, because those are the people who'll be shopping there. Another great thing if you have
more friends, or people in your community, is to host a small clothing swap. Especially these days
people shop so much it is a very viable thing to do. And the third thing I like to do is to
simply sell my clothes. I always prefer selling to donating, even if it's only a three dollar sale,
it's still better than donating because someone have spent money on it so they will most likely
at least try to use it. For myself it's also really been a good reminder because when I
bought something for a $100 and then sold it for five dollars, I sort of, it's sort of a humbling
and learning moment. The more we can close this loop and create a cyclic consumerism the better.
So what we need to do is make better choices when shopping. So only buy used, organic or ethical,
or simply don't buy anything at all. Take care of what you have, use it, then upcycle it or
recycle it if there's no other choice. So taking responsibility of all my belongings in all these
three different aspects has really changed how I look at shopping, how I behave as a consumer
and also what items I bring into my life. Because if I have to extend my responsibility that far,
to everything I buy, then buying becomes a lot less fun. So what do you think about this? Do
you also have a secret stash of your belongings stored in some dark corner of your parents house?
I'd love to hear what you think, and I'll see y'all next week. Bye. Bye!
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