Building on my impulse decision I mentioned in my earlier post, Do impulse decisions screwup your finances?, I can’t help reflect on my possessions — or to be more precise, the number of possessions I have.
I know. It’s completely out of the blue. Some might think, it’s random, but it’s not.
You know how we work hard to get an apartment, then get a bigger apartment, then perhaps a deluxe… and all the way up to a house or villa?
That is reflected in our innate need for more.
I guess what I am trying to say is, that no matter what you currently have, you will always want something bigger.
Recently, I was actually thinking of changing my apartment… to guess what? A bigger one.
In my self-justification to do that, even though, I wasn’t going to pay more, but rather change my neighborhood, was that I have too much stuff! I simply don’t have enough space to keep all of it. I need an extra wardrobe. I need more storage space. I need more space for all of my “stuff”.
Now, I look around me, and think, “Do I really need a bigger place? or do I actually need to get rid of the stuff that I don’t use?”
I have a massage chair and foot massage… because let’s be clear, which one of us doesn’t like a massage?
But, then I have another look, and ask myself, “When was the last time I used them?”
The chair? A couple of months ago.
The foot massager? A couple of years ago!
I think I should definitely get rid of those and sell them, then my emotional self would tell me, I would lose so much money on them… I will have the occasional green tea and use my massage chair to relax. There… a justification to keep them.
A pathetic excuse, I know, but it kind of works for me.
Coming back to my impulse decision to travel I mentioned earlier. I did decide to travel after all, and I did go, and to tell you the truth, it was such an epic trip. Maybe, I will talk about it later in another post, but here I want to mention the packing phase of my travel.
Taking the advice from The Solo Female Traveler Network written here in this post, 50 Travel Tips on Spending Less, I decided to take my smallest suitcase, the carry-on — that way, I know I will not over pack and do not have space to buy stuff.
My trip was for 5 days, yet, I packed for 10 days — thinking, “I might need that.” To tell you the truth, I didn’t need “that”.
I might have needed those items if my trip was 10 days, but it wasn’t. It was only for 5 days. I think I packed my carry-on to the fullest and only used half of what I packed.
Which makes me think… How much of the stuff that I currently possess, I have because “I might need that one day”. I will tell you the answer. It’s a lot! I bet it’s a lot more than I actually think.
The moment I entered my apartment after coming back from my trip I started thinking, “I need space. What is all of this stuff? Why do I have this box? Why do I have this? Why didn’t I throw this away? This has expired, why the hell do I still have it?”
I can pretend I don’t know the answer all I want, but I do know the answer. It’s because it’s part of me like I have found out and shared here in this post, I couldn’t be a minimalist and here is why.
It’s part of me, yet, it’s holding me back. It’s part of me and perhaps driving me to make decisions such as getting a bigger apartment. I don’t need a bigger apartment. I need what I have, right here, right now. I just need to learn what do I really love and want with me no matter what, and what I don’t need and have to let go of… and as easy as this might sound, it’s not.
All of this is part of me… and the real question that I need to answer is… How long will I keep on holding on to stuff that will only hold me back? #DeepStuff