Does Your Stuff Truly Make You Happy?

I posted a simple comment on a “tips for eliminating clutter” Facebook page tonight and my phone exploded!!!! I asked my family if I would be liable when someone had a heart attack from emotional overload! The post literally had 133 comments in just a few minutes! Were people even reading it at this point? Here is the post:

I will have a Ph.D. In Psychology, this November. My major is cognition, how the brain works. I see all of these “I can’t seem to clean post” SURE you can clean you just have too much “stuff”! Is all this stuff worth beating yourself up and feeling bad about your life on a daily basis?! NO, it’s not!!! I don’t know any of you but I love you enough to want your life to be easy and peaceful. Get rid of the stuff!!!!!!

I got replies that I was being judgemental and was told to let people live their lives. The group was established to give tips and it appears that sympathy is what is really being asked for!

I can have empathy because of my things …… and you know what let’s not call them “things” which is too nice! The shit in my house took over my life! At one point in my life, I was living in a three-story home that you could not walkthrough! I had all the classic excuses. I had three children and a brand new baby, my husband was cheating on me, I was depressed, and I was overweight. Could all the stuff in my house be causing my symptoms and not the other way around?

A place for everything and everything in its place. What happens when you run out of space and nothing has a place anymore?

One lady commented that she was a forensic psychologist and I was just being rude because people suffer from OCD, Depression, and anxiety. I suffered from all of these and was overweight for years as well. However, when I finally got rid of all the clutter in my house and started keeping it clean on a daily basis all of these “symptoms” went away! I am no longer depressed or anxious. I lost over thirty pounds and found out my OCD was a potassium deficiency. Oh, and yes I got rid of the husband also. I realize that not everyone is me, but I think that we are enough alike that we should consider for a moment what is the shit surrounding us actually doing to us mentally?

My post hit a nerve and triggered an extreme emotional response. What does this mean? In very simple terms: It hit home!

The stuff that you love so much will never love you back!

Here is a comment that showed up three miles down the thread for my post:

"But to you you just may see an old menu hanging on a wall, me I see the memory of me and my dad and mom going out to eat together and having a memory. You may see hospital stickers stuck on my wall and those remind me of my lost loved one to you they would mean nothing though……"

Here is my reply:

If you look at my page I have a recent photo of my office that I actually posted here. There is an owl on my bookshelf. It belonged to my granny and then my uncle. I have sentimental stuff as well. My eye-opener was hearing my granny's voice after she died telling me “when will enough be enough.” She would not have wanted me to keep things to the point of them causing me to become overwhelmed and not able to clean my house. My memories are in my head and can never be taken away. I tell my kids stories about their granny every day to keep her memory alive ❤

If this pandemic and being shut in our homes only teaches us one thing then let it be this:

We have to love each other while we are alive! We have to make enough beautiful memories to sustain ourselves when our loved ones pass. My granny, uncle, father-in-law, grandfather, and father would not want me to live in a house that had turned into a sanctuary for dead relatives. They would want me to do just as I am; tell my kids stories and instill those memories into my children's long-term memory.

I wasted so many years and so much precious time being surrounded by my hoard and making excuses for it. I do not want the same for you. Tough love made me open my eyes to what ‘I’ had created! No one else was to blame, just me. I eliminated all the unnecessary shit from my life…. things and people over eight years ago. Here is the result:

I still have my three youngest children at home, along with four-year-old twin grandchildren I am helping my daughter raise. She is single and has had two heart procedures for WPW. but that’s another story. My house is chaos on any given day but it’s clean! Why? because everything has a place and if it doesn’t it goes to Goodwill to find a place in someone else’s life. I don’t make excuses anymore. Instead, I make time to clean and organize. Why? Because it is important to me and my family. Our mental health is contingent on a clean environment in which to function and be happy. My children are more important than some inanimate object. They love me!

Look around you while you are in your homes these last few days. Is all the shit you have accumulated worth the negative emotions they are causing you? I have taught a crawling baby to pick up their own toys, so I promise you that you can clean! You may be overwhelmed to the point of paralysis but you can clean.

I repeat YOUR STUFF WILL NEVER LOVE YOU BACK!

LOVE YOURSELF ENOUGH TO GET RID OF IT! CLEAN HOUSE!