We all know a person who is a hoarder collector. They save everything! Everything is valuable in one form or another so they save it. They can’t stand to waste. Even the smallest, most insignificant thing is viewed as precious. Aluminum cans, grocery store plastic bags, orange peels, screws and nails, cardboard boxes, old electrical cords for technology that has been obsolete since the 70’s, news papers, Christmas cards from people they don’t even like anymore… you get the point.
Of course they have their reason for saving these things. They say things like, “it’s better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it” or “one day, this will be worth a lot of money” or, my personal favorite, “you never know when this could come in handy.”
There are probably exceptions to this rule, but most of the time they aren’t the most organized sort of people. So that first adage usually, in practice, sounds more like “it’s better to need it, know you have it, can’t find it, go buy it, three months later you find it, and not need it (anymore)… (Gasps for a breath) than to know you don’t have it and need so you go buy it.” And the second is true… but, most of the time we do have a general idea of what is going to be worth a lot of money latter on. And chances are, those boxes of baby clothes sitting in the attic (or worse yet garage) are probably never coming back into style, and if by some chance they do, the person they give them to will not want to take the time to bleach and wash those dingy yellow, faded, burped up on, mildew infested clothes – that smell worse than death – and then sow up all the moth holes so that their baby can look like it was born into the poor house. It’s just not going to be worth a million dollars on eBay in the near future.
Now, before we go any farther, you’re probably either in one of two groups.
1. You’re either thinking of that person, probably a family member who is like that and you’re thinking “ugh, yes they drive me crazy! Why can’t they just throw it away!”
Or
2. You’re getting defensive and thinking “Well, those people can’t help it. We, uh… I mean, they, probably have a valid reason for saving that stuff.
So before you tune me out, I have to tell you that I am a hoar- no, collector. I hate waisting things and I really do see value in everything. Worse than that, I was raised by parents who have a mindset like that. I see the humor in it because I’ve lived it. My dad collected thousands of pop bottle lids. Apparently they had a code on them that you could input somewhere online and get points that you could buy stuff with. I’m pretty sure each lid was worth 100 points, and if you had 100,000 points you could by… a pop. So each lid was worth about 100th of a cent. A great investment of time. I’m sure there were specially marked lids that were worth 1,000,000 points or something but even then, at that point you’re just waisting your time. Not to mention the clutter. He had bags of lids.
It’s not just my dad though, my mom is bad about it too just in different ways. I can’t tell you how much junk we have around the house that we just can’t get rid of. She tries, bless her heart, but it’s a real struggle to let go of those things that could be important but probably aren’t. We have several “junk drawers” around our house. Every once in a while she’ll pull out something and say,
“Do you recognize this? I know I’m saving it for a reason but I don’t know what it goes to. I hate to throw it away because it could be important.”
And I’ll say, “yeah it goes to that mixer that broke and dad spent the whole day trying to fix until he really broke it and we had to throw it in the trash. After, he had to cut the cord off it because ‘it might come in handy someday’. So I put it with the 300 others he cut off other stuff.” But most of the time we really never figure out what it was off of so, you guess it, back in the drawer it goes.
The truth is, something is going to be waisted. Maybe in the future you can rebuild that alternator and you won’t have to go buy one. Maybe you can give your daughter your wedding dress. Maybe someone will like going through your old cards. Someday you may regret getting rid of that camera you could give your grandkids or that broken remote all the kids under 3 fight over because they think it’s a phone, but probably not. We have to decide what that something is. Is it storage space? Time? Effort? Money? Organization? There are many different repercussions that come because we didn’t throw it away, and that’s okay. However, we need to choose.
For those of you who are like my sister, you’re not out of the woods yet either. Sure, it’s not as easy to make fun of you for throwing good stuff away as it is to make fun of ourselves for keeping worthless junk, but you’re waisting too. Maybe it’s not as funny but it’s just as bad, maybe worse. My sister is know to be punctual, organized, inflexible and better than ever one else. Okay, maybe that last one is just us thinking it because we know we’re disorganized, always late, and probably flexible to a fault.
Every once in a while she’ll go to may parents house and clean it for them, and by clean I mean throw away all their collectables. After she leaves my parents usually tell their horror stories of how she trashed their prize possession and we all sit around judging her for being wasteful.
There has to be a middle ground. Things do hold value, but things can also be a liability. I think an answer is to be honest with yourself, and know what you want. Do you want a clean house 100% of the time? Or do you want to be self sufficient when the grid goes down and you can sell your pop cans for gas money? If you choose the first, try to find ways you can be less wasteful. I think a good thing to do is take inventory of what you waist the most of. For instance if you find yourself getting rid of clothes or valuable things that you simply don’t want, You can start with giving things to charity or a local thrift store (my wife hates goodwill so she is always looking for an independent thrift store that won’t take the free stuff and price it as gold). That’s not the end goal, because you’re still wasting in a way. While donated is good, it has the same net loss to you as trashing it. Instead try consignment. If you have a lot of time, try selling it yourself. The best way to stop wasting those things is to stop buying them. “A penny saved…” and all that.
This era we live in has been plagued with waste. At least in America, I can’t speak for other countries, we own so much stuff and we have to deal with it all. Stuff doesn’t bring happiness, at least not true lasting happiness. Going full on minimalist doesn’t seem to be the answer either. I need certain things and if I don’t have anything I don’t have anything. Things can be an asset.
Having stuff everywhere really does take up our mental space too. Sometimes my wife will clean off the island at my moms and mom will come in the kitchen and say, “Oh! It’s so nice to have a place to rest my eyes.” It really takes a lot off your mind when your space is tidy.
So where do we go from here? There fast to be a balance. There is a proverb that deals with thins topic. It reads “Where no oxen are, the crib is clean: but much increase is by the strength of the ox.” Proverbs 14:4.
If having a clean house is most important to you, don’t have kids, don’t get married, don’t own anything. It will stay clean. However, why have a house if you don’t have a family to share it with. In the proverb it is sort of saying the same thing. Why have a clean stall – if you don’t have an ox the stall isn’t needed. It’s like having a really nice car that you keep super clean and wax it. It is beautiful, but… it doesn’t have an engine. What good is it? To conclude, we all need to find what is most important in our life. Is it being clean, organize, punctual? Or is it being more independent, self reliant, and possessing things that are valuable. Obviously no one wants to be that crazy hoarder who can’t get through their own front door because of all the stuff. We need to strike a balance, between the two ideals. We need to choose what to keep, and what to throw away.
S.T.
I Thessalonians 5:24
"Faithful is he..."
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