It is the season to go shopping, or so we are told. This is most definitely a time of year when we may accumulate a whole lot of wanted (and unwanted) stuff in our lives.
Some may be treasures, but it is likely many will have been cheaply made and no longer be useful to us within a few months.
Most of know we have too much, but we can sometimes feel overwhelmed with the weight of dealing with thinning out our belongings, so we ignore them altogether, storing them in garages, shoving them in drawers or letting them inhabit the back of our closets. All this accumulating has bloated the average size of the Canadian home, which doubled in the last generation while family sizes have shrunk.
Our abundance of possessions came into our lives supposedly to make them more fun and easy, but is that the reality? Where is the line between owning things and them owning us? When does excess bleed into the disorder of hoarding?
As the popular television series Hoarders highlighted, a hoarder’s home often becomes barely habitable, with living spaces turned into storage areas of things kept for sentimental value and perceived future use.
It can be tempting to excuse our own tendencies to accumulate and hold onto things by comparing to people who are more extreme. The reality is if everyone consumed like Canadians do, we would need four earths, which is something to keep in mind as we head to the stores for last-minute gifts and shopping sprees.
During this nesting time of the year, you might have more time to filter through your storage to find items you are ready to release to friends, family and local thrift stores. You may even find valuables that can command a fair price online or things you can regift to loved ones over the holidays.
By purging closets, you make room for gifts coming into your life and potentially sharing your excess with others who have been on the hunt for that exact treasure.
Let’s Talk Trash is Powell River Regional District’s waste-management education program.
