college help: I am sentimental, but I hate clutter. - Help.com

I heard a quote I liked recently, “Keep the lessons and the love, and leave everything else behind.” How I tried to apply it was the opposite, to try to remember situations in the past and think what the main lesson was, but the only reason I really noticed that sentence was because I was so interested in clearing what was unnecessary from my life. Mostly I wasn’t thinking about my own ideas about it, nor was I actively considering my own possessions, just reading a lot of other people’s ideas about clutter, letting go, clearing, space clearing, letting go of the old and accepting the new. But after a lot of reading I would randomly make a few motions and clean up a whole lot of things. It was pretty interesting.

Good Will would take all your stuffed walruses, but they also randomly toss just about anything in the trash. It’s a shame. I have no idea why you’re not getting replies here, maybe you have to invite people or something.

Charities can make good uses for your things, and for things like Stuffed animals, you can give them to orphans and sick terminal children in Hospitals, I can assure you, you’ll not only give yourself a NEW memory, but you’ll ALSO bring joy to someone who hasn’t experienced that sensation in a long time. Give, and you shall receive.

You can always take pictures of the stuff before you give it away.

verge wrote:
Well thank you for answering me.
I guess the walruses will go to good will. This is going to be so hard. I feel guilty about getting rid of them.
Did you feel better overall afterwards?

Yes, I felt better in every way. This is a little different than the feeling of puzzling over each thing and trying to feel if I can let go, and then regretting all the things I let go of. The difference is mostly that I put most of my effort on trying to understand the wisdom of people who talk about letting go of old stuff, and then just a little effort on actually dealing with my junk (and it turns out that most all of it is junk, the value is really in us, not in the things.)

verge wrote:

red1263 wrote:
Charities can make good uses for your things, and for things like Stuffed animals, you can give them to orphans and sick terminal children in Hospitals, I can assure you, you’ll not only give yourself a NEW memory, but you’ll ALSO bring joy to someone who hasn’t experienced that sensation in a long time. Give, and you shall receive.

You can always take pictures of the stuff before you give it away.

Thanks, I actually thought of the picture thing. I think I might do that. The whole giving joy thing sounds good. I hope other people will like them as much as I did. Most people think walruses are very ugly though.

Trust me, if you give a child a gift, no matter what it is, They will cherish it for the rest of their lives.

Once you start it gets so much easier. I had to do it in order to emigrate this year. I made certain all my stuff went to good homes. It is easier once you get going. Quite fun actually.

I nearly got rid of my childhood bear in my twenties but didn’t. I’m 47 now and tried to give my bear to my children but they my hate my old bear (better luck with my grandchildren.) Keep your old stuffed toys if you onced loved them. You can hide them in the cupboard and you want regret it when you’re older. My sister took her bear around the world recently and sent me photos along the way. You may find your tastes for living spaces changes as you get older, mine did.

After I last replied, I found an iPhone app called “Clear”, which is a to-do list maker, whose motto is “Life is messy. Simplify, with Clear.” And it’s very popular, with an emphasis on extreme functional simplicity — it doesn’t have any of the features most of the other todo-list or organizing or planning programs have. I got it and started listing things, tasks, thoughts, feelings, ideas, observations, … it was soon becoming much like this room I’m in, full of things. What are all those things? I don’t know, it’s like they’re just living there, I don’t want to deal with them. But I recorded a little chant over a drum and bass loop, “My room is messy. Simplify, with Clear.” Somehow I recorded it in a way that was really pleasant to listen to, so all yesterday it was playing, and I kept going back to the Clear program and adding more items related to Clearing or just anything else, and deleting items, and prioritizing items, and marking items ‘done’ and changing the color schemes… and that was the first step of an interesting Clearing project, and then I moved on to a next step today, and it’s interesting how things have been cleaned up. To be clear about it, I have often been very very good at cleaning or simplifying or organizing everything so it is very simple and clean, but not right now. Everything has been a mess recently, but I didn’t even care about bothering to deal with it, being concerned with other things. So my remembered habits of quickly moving through everything and organizing strongly and intuitively never kicked in, except in small ways playing with this “Clear” app on an iPhone. And that way is interesting because it’s so different, and everything is getting cleaned and organized in a different way than I’ve really done before.

Sorry I didn’t say that very Clearly. But I’m working on making things more clear.

I’m glad that my reply helped. I know I’m no stuffed walrus, but at least I try to help.

Now I feel like I have more direct mutual experience with you of sentimental attachment and clutter — because that game we were playing cluttered up my time till I didn’t know if I was awake or asleep, and I can easily feel my attachment or tendency to want to still be talking with you… but I don’t have much analysis of this at the moment, just an observation.

verge wrote:
Is your observation my consolation prize or a promise?

I just noticed a strong similarity between the feelings that I should be interacting with you somewhere and the feelings of sentimental attachment you brought up in this post. Looking at my long reply above, I remember that I already was thinking about this at a deeper level than might normally be expected. So, I don’t know what happens in the future, but it seems possible that I might have some relevant insight for you. And perhaps even these two replies have helped with relevant insight, I don’t know.

verge wrote:
I liked cluttering your time.

Likewise. In the context of just the two of us doing something, I didn’t have any reason to want to do anything else. But then in the context of I should wake up first thing in the morning and be out away from computers all day, I have good reason to do something else. Like there may be no reason whatsoever to give away stuffed walruses except that your parents are moving to a smaller place. Maybe there are other options.

When I chose that “Clear” app to try to simplify the mess of life, I also looked at all the other to-do list programs. One of the other most popular, recommended and appealing ones is called “Priorities” — so I guess the thematic emphasis is more on choosing This or That, rather than making chants about simplifying the mess. I hope that makes a little sense. It’s just some words to lead up to pointing out this neat thing: http://handcarvedcode.com/apps/priori…

I know how u feel my mom is moving to a smaller place and I’m not home and she decided to go through my father and brothers stuff and throw everything away don’t know if it woulda been Easier if I was there … Maybe donate the stuffed animals to an orphanage that’s the advice my brother would have given and keep one or two that mean the most to you

i helped a friend clean their clutter
we went thru everything one piece at a time
Saved what was most valuable to them in plastic totes with lids
great for stacking.
When i moved i did the same thing, there’s lots of things you save
But over time isn’t that important anymore
Get some totes to keep special keepsakes, do a scrapbook
get a trash bag for the rest.
Good luck

Well….. have never really owned much but i owned a Bear named Toji and my dad ripped it to parts and threw it away D:

It made me very sad. If your attached to something that holds alot of memorys dont get rid of it. Unless there bad memorys ^ ^

It said you needed help on this post so i tryed to help. . . . . Im not very good a it but if you like your walresses keep them ^ ^

well… i mean if your aloud to?