September 08, 2008

Pretend You’re Moving

In Fear of Nothing, I mention moving as one of the events that can change your perspective on your possessions. Moving is so expensive, in such an obvious way, that you know you cannot move everything. You have to let go of some of the less important items. But you don’t have to wait till you move to get the benefit of this change in perspective. You can start preparing for your next move, even if you have only a vague idea of when it might be. Or you can pretend you’re moving.

In the Happiness Project blog, Gretchen Rubin wrote recently about moving as a chance to do some clutter-busting. She suggests a good set of questions you can ask to get at the real value of things. Some of the comments readers have added to that blog post highlight the suspense of clutter and the sense of relief in letting it go.

1 comment:

Rick Aster said...

You can also get a new perspective at the end of the moving process. When I moved two years ago, there were two boxes I never got around to opening. Obviously, those possessions weren’t as relevant as I thought.

Carrying my old LP collection, which at the time weighed more than I did, up the stairs, I said to myself, “I am going to have to digitize these albums, because I am definitely not moving this collection again!” And that was after I threw away half the collection before I moved.