3 Easy Ways to Declutter Your Home
August 14, 2011, By Tom McNulty 0 comments
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." That’s the sentence carved into the Statue of Liberty’s base.
Well, I think there should be some extra verbiage tacked onto that plaque …words that sum up what many of us seem to believe is the American Way: “Keep buying stuff ‘til you’re happy.”
Chisel it! Welcome to America!
The pursuit of happiness. And stuff.
I’ve been there, in the “gotta have it” camp, thinking if only I could have that computer, that car, that house, I’d be happy. Well, I had all of it, and I wasn’t. I’d been conspicuously consuming my way down a dead-end street. I always seemed to be just a purchase or two away from bliss.
But it seldom works out that way. The world is filled with upscale couples who are miserable, rich guys who are driven to acquire still more, princesses on prozac. Declutter and set yourself free.
In terms of housekeeping, owning fewer things is a huge advantage. It’s really liberating. It means you have less stuff to dust, maintain, move around, put gas into, store, pay monthly fees on, block your view, trip over, break, malfunction, wear out and get lost.
If you’re one of those guys who just likes to “have” things, this advice will slide right past you. But remember: there are only so many of your possessions they can shovel into your casket with you. In the meantime, you’ve got to take care of all that stuff.
But this issue is so important that one of Clean Like a Man’s Men Commandments is “Say No to Knickknacks,” which, in both the literal and metaphorical sense, means “stuff.”
