Your stuff might be clutter if ...
Let’s be clear: stuff isn’t inherently bad. But it becomes problematic when it takes on too much promi- nence in your life. If you have more stuff than you can use, especially if it includes things you don’t like, want or can reasonably consume, it’s a good bet that you have clutter.
A few hallmarks of clutter are: nYour things make you feel depressed, overwhelmed or frustrated.
n Your possessions make you feel as if you can’t invite guests to your home.
n You’re losing full use of rooms in your house, such as a garage or guest bedroom, due to an over- flow of possessions.
n Items remain in shopping bags for weeks after they’re purchased.
things we keep—old clothes we no longer wear and toys the kids haven’t played with in years, or collectables and knickknacks displayed in our homes.
Clutter also includes the non- essential ways we spend our hours and energy on extraneous activities and “busy-ness.” It’s evidenced by jam-packed calendars and unfocused idleness, such as aimlessly surfing the Internet or logging on to Facebook for hours on end.
It also takes psychological and spiritual forms, from maintaining unhealthy relationships to nursing the wounds of hurts from years past. “We use clutter to try to anesthe- tize ourselves from pain and fear,” said Brooks Palmer, author of Clutter Busting: Letting Go of What’s Hold- ing You Back (New World Library, 2009). “Clutter can be like a buffer or an insulator for us. We have it because we’re fragile creatures and clutter can make us feel as if we’re protected.”
Palmer says we gravitate toward clutter—a contention that’s supported by the research of social scientists.
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The Center on Everyday Lives of Families at the University of Califor- nia, Los Angeles, recently finished a multiyear study that documented a staggering number of possessions within the 32 sample suburban homes it tracked. Among the study’s dual- income, middle-class households with school-aged children, research- ers uncovered treasure troves of trin- kets, gadgets, furniture, souvenirs, toys and more. Seventy-five percent of the families’ garages had no room for cars because of spillover items from the house.
Another indicator of our clutter culture is the surge of storage facili- ties. There are more than 54,000 self- storage businesses nationwide, offer- ing 78 square miles of rental room. That’s 7.3 square feet of space for every person in the country, accord- ing to the Self Storage Association, a trade group based in Alexandria, Va. What’s more, discount stores now devote aisles of shopping space to home organization and storage items. And specialty chains, including The Container Store, add locations each year to keep up with consumer demand for stuff to hold stuff. Our preoccupation with clutter also has evolved into a source of entertainment. Popular cable TV programs such as Hoarders and Hoarding: Buried Alive take viewers into the homes and personal lives of people with obsessive compulsions to keep things.
In some respects, our tendency to accumulate clutter traces back to our country’s founding emphasis on independence and self-reliance. Hun- dreds of years ago settlers filled their homesteads with salted meats and firewood to survive long, grueling winters. Modern suburban families now load up at Costco and stockpile toilet paper and economy-sized jars of peanut butter with a similar sense of urgency.
Economic cycles and national times of crisis also come into play. The Depression taught many of today’s elderly tough lessons about staying prepared for hard times and keeping things that might later serve useful.
Our drive to acquire things even became associated with patriotic duty when, in the days following the Sept. 11 tragedy in 2001, elected leaders urged Americans to go shopping as a way of returning to normalcy. Times of economic prosperity have catalyzed fevers of unfocused consumerism—and now, despite our country’s lingering recession, the Advent season is inundated with mes- sages to shop and acquire.
Reasons for clutter It’s no surprise that clutter is an epi- demic, Palmer said. After all, we’re surrounded by media messages that tell us there’s something wrong with our lives. “We’re taught from the time we’re very young, whether we realize it or not, that something isn’t right and we need something to make it bet- ter,” said Palmer, who also works as a Chicago-area artist and comedian. “Advertisements have an underlying theme that says, ‘You’re not OK, but you will be OK if you do this or get this.’ It’s very effective and it’s how clutter can get a start.”
Palmer finds repetitions of this theme everywhere. He sees it on billboards, on the sides of buses, splashed across magazine pages and piled up in email spam filters. “It makes people feel as if they need ‘stuff’ as an insulator against pain,” he said. “People often bring things into their lives as a way to give them- selves an idea that they’re stronger or more powerful than their true, vulner- able selves really are. They start to think that if they get the right mate or the right job or attain something
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