Less is Best Blog

In this advent season, I am more and more dismayed at people’s attitudes toward their stuff. I happen to live right across the street from a modestly-sized mall, a craft store, a Best Buy, a Wal-Mart, and a Toys “R” Us. As you may imagine, the traffic during this month is unbelievable.  It makes me testy to have to wait ten minutes or more, just to get out of my driveway when I’m going somewhere.

Know what else makes me testy? Hearing about the lines at Toys “R” Us at midnight on Thanksgiving. I, of course, was not stupid enough to actually go there, but my sister in law has the grave misfortune to be employed there. The lines for the checkout were snaking all the way back through the store, up one aisle and down another, while a guard at the door would only allow one person into the store at a time as another one left. The vast majority of shoppers were using their credit cards to “pay” for their purchases.  People were walking out with multiple shopping carts and bags overflowing with toys.

And the worst part? They probably were only buying for their families–not for an orphanage. I felt like running up to them and asking “Who needs all this stuff? Do you realize that you’re probably going to be paying for this Christmas by the time next Christmas rolls around? Do you realize how much you are damaging your children’s sense of proportion by inundating them with all these toys?”

Obviously they don’t. But it just depresses me that during a time of year when even atheists can celebrate the concepts of peace and goodwill towards your fellow man, everyone has got so caught up in commercialism that they are destroying themselves, their families, and our society as a whole.

Not to mention the traffic patterns around my house.

Interior

We’ve just purchased the truck that will haul us around the country. As you can see from the pictures, some work is still required (such as finding and installing the bed!) but with that work done, this will be an awesome truck for us.
We’re told that the seller purchased this truck at a bankruptcy auction. The guys who went bankrupt had been rebuilding the truck- they put a new motor and transmission in (at a cost of around $8000), cleaned and painted the frame, replaced the interior… then went broke.

Definitely too bad for him… but great for us!

Passenger's side

The engine

This last week I helped a young woman organize her guest room, which was knee-deep in clothing, seasonal decorations, and other miscellaneous items. She had agreed that she wanted to reclaim the room for its original purpose, which was to house overnight guests, but when I suggested she choose at least one item out of every three and donate it to Goodwill or the Salvation Army, she balked.

She wanted to save this scarf for her aunt, who loved red.  That Christmas decoration was made by her daughter, who would be offended if she gave it away. This other pair of boots she was going to see if her other daughter wanted, even though “she never likes any of my clothes; she always says I dress like an old lady.”

I personally know a number of families in the area who do the majority of their shopping at Goodwill and the Salvation Army Thrift Store. They depend on being able to buy clothes there at low prices, because there is no way on earth they can afford to buy new things from the stores.  Another family I know could afford to buy new, but shop at Goodwill on principle: they like to keep things out of the landfill, and if they can keep just one pair of new jeans from having to be manufactured by buying used, they vastly prefer to.

So when I asked my client why she didn’t want to just donate the excess to Goodwill, instead of taking the time to find the perfect new home for it, she looked at me strangely and said that donating it to charity felt just like throwing it away. She didn’t want it to go to waste, so she wanted to give it to someone she knew.

Why does donating it to charity feel like throwing it away? I spoke with my cousin about it, who is also an organizer, and she has clients who feel the same way. To me it seems counter-intuitive: you donate your excess so that other people who need it have access to it. You don’t sit on it for years and years hoping to find just the right person to give it away to. First of all, you may not find that person, and second, you will have kept it out of circulation for all that time, denying its use to others who really need it. I couldn’t figure out why people could feel that way, until suddenly it came to me.

It’s a control issue.

If you give something away to a friend, you still control it. Your friend may or may not want it, but is more likely to accept it so as not to hurt your feelings. Even though the item is no longer in your house, you’re still in control of its use and disposal, because your friend will take pains to wear or use the item whenever you’re around. Then, after she is finished with it, she will be afraid to get rid of it so as not to hurt your feelings.

Not only are you still in control of the item, but it was not truly a gift. If you give it with the expectation that it will be used, loved, and kept, then it has strings attached–strings which you can still pull. You’re the puppet-master, not only of the item, but of your friend as well.

Who would willingly do this to a loved one?

I can understand offering it to someone whom you think will truly appreciate it–but if you’re just looking for someone, anyone, to take the item so it won’t have to go to Goodwill, you’re just trying to control it after it leaves your house. You’re not being generous to your friends; you’re trying to control them and your stuff.

Donating an item to Goodwill is giving a gift to someone.  You may not know who that person is, nor what they plan to do with the item–but the fact remains that people shop at Goodwill and other thrift shops because they need what is there.  If you aren’t willing to give up control of an item, you are robbing yourself of the opportunity to be truly generous. You are also removing the chance of another person being able to find what they need.

Donating is not at all like throwing away. Throwing away marks the end of an item’s usefulness and the beginning of its burdening the environment.  Donating to a charity marks the continuation, a milestone, the next phase in the life of an item–as well as marking your generosity and willingness to give freely rather than keep control while pretending that you’re being generous. Even things that you don’t think anyone can use–clothes too ragged to wear, for example–Goodwill Industries makes and sells rags called “GoodWipes” and uses the proceeds to fund their other charitable programs.

Donating is honest; keeping something long enough to make sure that it only goes to people you know can be self-deception.

Many books on ADD and on organization talk about clutter, and refer to the process of getting rid of it as “de-cluttering.”

For some reason, those words have never appealed to me. It might be the negativity of the words. For those of us who still value things, there is a sense of loss attached to getting rid of it, and there can be a deep emotional attachment. There’s also a negative connotation to the prefix “de” in English. It means to do the opposite of what the base word means. Deregulate, demotivate, depopulate, destabilize, demote, devolve, deconstruct—they are all terms connected with negative results in our minds.

I prefer words with positive meanings: purge, cull, refine, streamline, cleanse.

Purge means to purify. The dictionary offers several definitions, from “to rid of whatever is impure or undesirable” to “to clear or empty (the bowels) by causing evacuation.” That’s a rather disgusting, but eye-opening comparison, isn’t it?

Refine is a metallurgical word that means to burn off the dross, the waste metal, so that what remains is pure gold.  Refinement is a positive concept, referring to getting rid of the rough edges, the rough manners, etc. and leaving behind only what is graceful and pleasant. Who among us wouldn’t want to be thought of as “refined”? Then perhaps it’s time to get our homes to that point as well.

Cull is an agricultural term. Farmers will cull an animal that does not produce enough offspring, milk, meat, etc. to make that animal worth keeping.  If the stuff in your home isn’t pulling its weight; if it’s not adding enough worth to your life to justify the space you give up to house it, then perhaps it’s time to cull it.

Streamline is one of Francine Jay’s favorite words. Francine Jay, also known as “Miss Minimalist,” (see link at sidebar) has written The Joy of Less, in which she makes an acrostic with the word streamline. I can’t call to mind what each letter stands for–thank you, ADD–but the concept is still sound anyway. Streamlining is cutting out all the extras to make something more efficient. It means to put something into racing trim, to make sure it performs its function at peak efficiency. It doesn’t matter, for example, whether the “Greyhound” you’re talking about is a dog or a bus–streamlining means it will perform fast and efficiently.  If your home keeps you from performing quickly or efficiently, then perhaps it needs more streamlining. Cut out the extras to help it perform at peak efficiency.

Cleanse is another favorite concept of mine.  I like it because, as a health nut, I am concerned about how toxic our environment is. In health nut circles, “doing a cleanse” means to ingest only pure materials designed to purge (ha!) the toxins from our bodies. If our homes have become toxic, sluggish places that sap our energy when we walk into them, then it is time to give your home a cleanse.

So no, I don’t tend to recommend de-cluttering. Instead, let me mix some metaphors and recommend that we eliminate the crap in our homes, cleanse and streamline them by culling the extras and the non-performers, and refine them so that all that’s left is the gold.

Starting a new business is like moving to a new place, getting a new job, having a first date. All new, exciting, slightly nerve-wracking voyages of discovery.

I’ve been ordering office supplies, repurposing some shop equipment to securely destroy hard drives, and reconfiguring an area to serve as my eBay sales area. Each new task is a turns satisfying (watching a neglected space become useful), instructive (learning about the standards required for the new business), painful (that shop equipment has no safety features), and humbling (there’s a lot to learn!).

It seems as though the only emotion that the new business venture is not bringing about is complacency. Eventually we’ll have a comfortable routine established, but right now it’s all new (and slightly scary). Change is good. I keep telling myself that. Change is good.

On the bright side, rearranging the house has led to much more space. The living room is larger and calmer, without the desk filling up one corner. Our kitchen looks larger than a dance floor, with the table and chairs downsized to a breakfast bar. This is unscary change, immediate improvement.

I lost nearly half a chapter of the Less is Best manuscript. Mourn with me. Am doing my best to reconstruct it and hope to have that chapter completed this week.

I’m also doing a lot more reading about ADD. I know many men and women of my generation who feel cheated that ADD was not known when we were in school. My whole school experience–not to mention my self esteem for most of my life!–could have been very different.

This week, we sold the kitchen table and chairs.  There is a built-in wooden shelf at one end of the living room, so we picked up a couple of barstools and are now calling that shelf the breakfast bar. So far, it works just fine, and still has the thrill of novelty; it’s like the three of us are going out to lunch and sitting at a lunch counter for every meal.  But best of all, when you come in the door, all you can see is space.  It is the most beautiful thing in the world! I’m still crusading to get rid of the portable dishwasher, which takes up the rest of the kitchen, but Matt sensibly pointed out that we still haven’t mastered keeping up with the dishes yet. Until we do, the dishwasher is a sad necessity. Still–it’s so relieving to read the ADD books and find out that we’re not actually undisciplined slobs who prefer to live in squalor. It’s just that our brains work differently, and we have to make adjustments if we don’t want to live in squalor.

The major adjustment we’ve made, which I am writing about with great gusto, is to eliminate the vast majority of our stuff.  Minimalist living is highly recommended for everyone, for the sake of the environment; for ADD adults, it’s very nearly required, for the sake of sanity! It’s really wonderful to be able to find important things, now that we have purged all the unimportant ones. Such freedom and peace of mind! I’m really enjoying the process.  We’re not quite there yet; we still have stuff stacked on the bureau to go out to the shed, once we get the shed organized. But the progress is huge, and it’s visual. Wish I could share my excitement with everyone else! Perhaps I’ll post pictures at some point.
This week, sit down and make a list of the minimum amount of clothing you need in order to conduct your everyday life.  Do you work outside the home? Then list five days’ worth of clothing appropriate to your profession (four, if your office enjoys casual Fridays). List two or three days’ worth of clothes for the weekends, if you’re lucky enough to not have to work a second or third job on those days.

Make sure you choose the absolute best of what you have.  That’s the coolest thing about minimalist living: if you only keep what you need, then you get to keep the very best. Imagine having only the “cream of the crop” around you, all the time… and where all the mediocrity and “I guess it’s good enough” things used to be, you now have clear, beautiful, empty space. Instead of having your underwear drawer crowded with stained, stretched-out, uncomfortable underwear, you now keep only your very best, newest, most attractive and comfortable few pairs–and with all the others gone, you can fit them all neatly into the drawer.

Underwear. I know, huh? It’s fairly trivial. But it’s something that nearly everyone can relate to. And it is definitely time for us ADD adults to stop thinking that we don’t deserve the best.  We have delightful, weird, creative brains that work differently from most other people’s. Is that any reason to punish ourselves by keeping mediocre stuff around? Nah. We deserve the best. Get used to it.