Having Too Much Stuff Knows No House Size

I have too much stuff.

How many of us can say that? If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume you can. I’d ask for a show of hands, but I can’t see them.

I live in a cargo van. Not an extended van either, just a regular size cargo van. You might be tempted to dismiss my plight accordingly.

“Get a roof rack.” “Get a hitch haul.” “Get an apartment.”

Get more space.

Is more space the solution? People with houses covering thousands of square feet are devouring Marie Kondo and praying to be liberated from the crushing density of stuff. The self-storage industry covers enough ground to house every single homeless person in this country and then some. Seems like more space just means more stuff.

So what’s really the problem?

We are.

I am.

I am the reason I have too much stuff.

I used to live in an apartment all by myself. I had plenty of stuff to fill it and had to invent some storage for the things that didn’t quite fit. Then I lived with someone else, but luckily we moved into a larger apartment suitable for all of our stuff.

Luckily.

Somehow when I moved out and into a smaller apartment again, I had more things than I went in with. The excess space masked my accumulation of stuff so I didn’t even notice until it was time to put everything into boxes.

Moving is hell. Somehow, no matter how organized I try to pack everything, I’m still tossing things into trash bags at the last minute. Never fails. There is just so much junk everywhere. No matter how much I sort and give away, there are still mountains of it to move.

So when I moved into this cargo van initially, I cannot even describe to you how cluttered it was. There are no photographs, for which I am grateful. Remembering it is bad enough.

I downsized a lot to fit as imperfectly as I did in this space. It is still a work in progress. But I realized that I didn’t need an apartment’s worth of stuff. I’m doing just fine in this tiny space.

So why did I have so much stuff in the first place?

I’m a planner

I like to be prepared. I plan for rainy days and contingencies. That meant I had things sitting around just in case. Some of those things had never been used. Some had been used once, and I probably hadn’t really needed it anyway.

I can be oddly sentimental

I am not sentimental about objects in general. I have no trouble getting rid of things that were given to me if I don’t like them or they serve no purpose in my life. Most of the time anyway. Occasionally an object connects so solidly with a person or even in my mind that it becomes incredibly difficult to part with. It’s all or nothing with me.

I hate waste

I will hold on to things I don’t need if I can’t find a way to get rid of it that honors its usefulness. I abhor the wastefulness of throwing away perfectly usable things, so I’ve ended up hanging on to such things until I could find someone to give them to who would use it. This results in a lot of clutter for me as my definition of usefulness is not the same as many others’ in this throwaway society.

Those are the big reasons. They trip me up all the time, but I’m getting a handle on them. Having less space is helpful because I don’t have room for slip-ups. If I bring something new in, something else has to go. Not because it’s a rule I made up, but because there simply isn’t space otherwise.

The amount of space we have or don’t have is not the problem when it comes to having too much stuff. We expand to fill our space naturally. Curbing that tendency requires looking inside ourselves rather than inside our living quarters.

This is the method that worked for me:

1. Ask yourself why you hold onto things.
2. Accept the answers without judgment.
3. Ask yourself if those motivations serve you. Do the results serve you?
4. Take steps to cut off the motivations that do not serve you.
5. When you are thinking about keeping an item or bringing one into your home, ask yourself why. Is it because of one of those motivations that aren’t serving you? If so, let the item go.

I’m no Marie Kondo. I don’t know what brings you joy. I can’t tell you what to keep or not. It’s your home and your space and your stuff and your life.

It’s your life.

I just know that the excuse of our storage space isn’t working anymore. We know, deep down inside, that the size of our closets isn’t the problem. You might have no closets like me or three in your bedroom alone.

I have too much stuff. You have too much stuff.

What are we going to do about it?

Why Do We Set Unrealistic Resolutions and Doom Ourselves to Failure