As a professional organizer I help people reduce the clutter in their lives. An acquaintance of mine Narda, recently shared an interesting story with me about why she no longer has room in her life for clutter.
Many years ago, when Narda was building a home, she stored boxes of personal belongings and memorabilia in the basement of the still unfinished house. Unfortunately, prior to move-in day, all of those boxes were stolen.
Narda was devastated. The stolen items, including grandma’s pie tin, girl scout badges and childhood and family mementos would have no value to anyone but her.
For a year, Narda wondered about what had become of her cherished possessions. At the end of that year she had an epiphany of sorts: She was actually fine without all of that stuff.
Since that time, Narda has placed much less value on the possessions and memorabilia so many of us can’t seem to part with.
I appreciate what she shared with me: “We assign value to [our own] things. We are in charge of that and need to give ourselves permission [to not assign so much value to stuff.] ”
Thank you Narda for letting me share your story and your perspective. I think it’s a powerful one.
You choose how much value to assign to something. You choose whether to assign value to something. What will you choose to assign value to in your life?