About 6 years ago I offloaded almost all of my belongings. At that point in my life I had been living in the same city for the longest stretch of time that I have ever lived anywhere, including when I was a child. It is very easy over this time to end up accumulating a bunch of stuff and of course, most of it ends up being useless shite that isn't really worth transporting.
Since that day, and the subsequent giving away and throwing out of more than 50% of my possessions, I made an effort to hopefully never accumulate things that I cannot transport in a couple of suitcases at any point in time.
The other day I was hanging around my apartment having consumed an edible and one of the brilliant side effects of this drug that I rarely use is that it makes me take better notice of clutter... and my kitchen had plenty of it.
One of the first things I noticed was this jar I keep next to my sink that holds bits and bobs of things that I think one day I might have a purpose for. Old toothbrushes are excellent for cleaning stuff other than teeth so at some point in the past I decided to hang onto my old ones for a future purpose of unknown origin. Why it is that over the years I felt as though I was ever going to need SEVEN of them defies even my limited intellectual logic. When in the hell would I ever need this many of them? Those got thrown out.
I also started taking stock of the things in my cabinets. Under my kitchen sink there was a collection of jars from pickles, mayonnaise, coffee, whatever you can imagine that comes in a jar. I had meticulously cleaned them, presumably at one point or another using one of the many toothbrushes in order to get the spotless and there they remained, for more than a year.
I knew at that point that I had accidentally returned to my old ways of hording because not only was I never going to use 27 empty Nescafe jars, but I probably wasn't ever going to use any of them. Those were thrown out as well during the great sweep of the kitchen.
I think the biggest offense, which I still find a bit amusing, was my collection of empty snus containers.
If you don't know what snus is just imagine "dip" (for the North Americans) but basically it is tobacco that for me at least, was a cigarette smoking cessation method. I've been using this gear for years and somewhere along the lines I decided that I was going to hang on to all of the empties.
This kind of falls into the same category as the Nescafe jars that I had under the sink but they stand even less of a chance of ever being used for anything since the largest amount of stuff you could possibly fit into them would be a half a handful of screws. Of course none of mine contained anything at all. I suppose if anything can come out of this particular part of the experience would be the fact that I can look at how much money I have spent on a nicotine habit because each one of those containers cost me around $15.
They are all now in the garbage somewhere, although I did separate them in the hopes that they would be recycled if that is possible here.
Other items that I ended up tossing out are
- socks where the elastic wore out a long time ago
- underpants with holes in them that I kept as "backup" and I am sure that basically all men do this
- impossibly stained t-shirts that I was convinced I would use to clean up things with despite the fact that my condo comes with twice-weekly maid service
- dozens of take away containers that I swore I would bring back to the same establishment in order to cut down on plastic waste
and of course because I live in Vietnam where getting a plastic bag is basically unavoidable - I had a hundred plastic bags, all stored inside of a much larger plastic bag.
It was nice getting rid of all this stuff and I did do my best to make certain that they will be recycled if possible for all of the things other than the underpants of course.
I promised myself that I would not end up like this again but I suppose for all of us some collection of what is essentially garbage is kind of something that just happens. Are you an accidental hoarder like me? Let's hear about it!
Yay! 🤗
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My wife and I try to keep things pretty near and tidy. It is inevitable that we somehow accumulate stuff though. Myself more than her. We will be doing some spring cleaning in the near future here and getting rid of a lot of it.
The thing is, my condo is only 50 meters sq. So it's not like I even have that much storage space. I suppose this is a good thing. When I moved away from a place in Thailand that i had lived 15 years in, I had so much crap. I gave away all of it that anyone wanted and tossed the rest. Having that many toothbrushes though, what was I thinking I was going to need to do with them?
Yeah, that does seem pretty limited. You would likely freak out if you saw my garage. I do use a lot of the stuff occasionally though.
I tend to hoard certain things. Computer equipment and books come to mind. But not things like empty containers and toothbrushes :). There's also tons of kids' stuff I REALLY need to get rid of. Toys they are too old for, stuffed animals, and that sort of thing.
There's always goodwill or Salvation army for that sort of stuff, but strangely, they don't accept stuffed animals because of lice or bedbugs or something.
I think we all are as habits just happen and it is not on purpose. I have clothes I never wear but the cupboards are full and need to start tossing out. Shoes I will never wear again is a prime example and just never get around to doing this.
yeah you are correct. I don't have much in the way of clothes or shoes since I try to keep my life to fit in a suitcase but I believe that half of my clothes still are things I never wear.
Oh my! We are in the same with the toothbrushes. Though I only have 5 here I planned to use them to clean our rest room as we change toothbrushes every 3 months. Haha I never had the chance to change the toothbrushes that I hoard and just remember them after reading this post.
With the mindset that I can use them again for future like the water bottles, vinegar gallons (for a pot project planning to repurpose them as a vase haha) they are stocked now in our home waiting for their time to resurface.
I use them for similar things but I guess the amount of them I was saving just kind of got out of hand :)
⋆ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʟᴀᴄᴇ ғᴏʀ sᴏᴜᴛʜᴇᴀsᴛ ᴀsɪᴀɴ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ ᴏɴ ʜɪᴠᴇ
⋆ sᴜʙsᴄʀɪʙᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴀsᴇᴀɴ ʜɪᴠᴇ ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴜɴɪᴛʏ
⋆ ғᴏʟʟᴏᴡ ᴛʜᴇ ᴀsᴇᴀɴ ʜɪᴠᴇ ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴜɴɪᴛʏ ᴠᴏᴛɪɴɢ ᴛʀᴀɪʟ
⋆ ᴅᴇʟᴇɢᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ʟɪɴᴋs 25 ʜᴘ⇾50 ʜᴘ⇾100 ʜᴘ⇾500 ʜᴘ⇾1,000 ʜᴘ
Hahaha, very Asian habit 😁 I thought at first that you were Filipino until I read that you are from Vietnam because most of us here doing the same thing, especially women. 😁
Ok, well it is good that I'm not the only one! haha
I am kind of the same way, I try to keep my life to an amount of things that fits in two pieces of checked luggage. This is mostly because I can't own land in Cambodia, can't get citizenship, and my visa future is always unknown. For this reason I've always tried to find the zen in between being settled and pretending Cambodia is home, but also being ready to load my things in a suitcase and leave in a few days.
Unfortunately my wife is an almost hoarder, but that's understandable because she feels more secure in her own country and can freely think about the future and a life in Cambodia 20 years from now, whereas I can only plan a life to my next visa renewal.
Sidenote, I didn't know you were a dipper. My daily mission as a kid was to ride past Orville Redenbacher's old house to cross the highway and buy my stepdad a can of skoal from a gas station that sold fried potato wedges, those were the good old days.