You Can Release Your Albatross!

Once upon a time…

I owned the beautiful antique reed pump organ in these photos*. It was black walnut and oak with intricately carved panels and delicate calligraphy lettering on the red velvet encased stops. It provided a workout when played, because the air forced through it to create sound was produced by pumping its large pedals.  It was one of the first antiques my mom purchased back in the 1960’s and it was the first “piano” I had as a child.  I have fond memories of sitting on my dad’s lap as a little girl, tapping merrily on the keys and pushing and pulling the stops while he pumped away on those pedals.  When my parents bought a piano, my mother sold the pump organ to her brother-in-law.  I was sad to see it go, but at that time a piano was what I really valued.

In 1993 when my husband and I had just built our first house in Colorado, my uncle offered the pump organ to me.  I jumped at the chance to have it back in my life.  I played it occasionally, but mostly it just sat in the living room, nicely filling up a large, previously empty wall.  When we moved to Ohio in 1996, the pump organ came with us and again took up residence in the little used formal living room, where rarely used things often end up in people’s homes.

In 1998, my parents were kind enough to gift my childhood piano to me and it took up residence in the family room about 15 feet from the pump organ.  With a piano around, the pump organ quickly became the elephant in the living room.  My husband really wanted it gone and had come to refer to it jokingly as “that damn pump organ.”  Even I was beginning to wonder if we had room in our home for a large piece of furniture that had no use other than to sit there, look pretty and hold memories.

In 2003 we remodeled the entire first floor of that house. It was around this time the pump organ began its transition from metaphorical elephant into metaphorical albatross**.   The organ was beautiful, but it was taking up useful space in a room that I was transitioning into my office.  I finally decided to sell it.  Because it was an “antique” and because I placed great sentimental value on it I set a price of $1000.

Within days of posting it for sale I learned antique reed pump organs were a tough sell.  You could give them away, but I wasn’t interested in that. My pump organ had value and I could never just give it away.  Interestingly, I recently learned in an ICD teleclass*** that there is a term for ascribing more value to items merely because we own them: The Endowment Effect.  If I had known about the Endowment Effect in 2003 my story might have ended then and there.

My unwillingness to acknowledge its lack of value however, resulted in us dragging my albatross from room to room during the remodel and then moving it right back into the living room.  There it remained, consuming space and inducing guilt until 2007 when we moved to a house with more windows and less wall space.  Because there was no longer a large wall to fill in my living room the pump organ was relegated to the basement, where it would remain for three years, cursing me each time I crossed its path.

In 2010 I hired some men to move a Pac-Man machine (which would later become my husband’s albatross!) to my basement. One of the movers spotted the pump organ and asked about it.  He was in the process of restoring a Victorian house and mentioned how much he appreciated Victorian era pieces.  Within seconds I offered it to him free of charge if he was willing to give it a good home.  Thrilled, he took it away that very day!

My Big Learning

First, it’s important to remember there are other types of value besides monetary value.  If back in 2003 I had valued the space in my living room more than the organ, I likely wouldn’t have suffered years of guilt or incurred the cost of moving my albatross to the basement of my new house.  Thankfully by 2010 I was able to value someone else appreciating the pump organ for the beautiful piece that it was, enabling me to release it. Second, it’s important to consider how the Endowment Effect might be impacting your judgment with respect to how you’re valuing your belongings. Get a realistic picture of the true value of your albatross by searching for comparable items on eBay or Craigslist.  You may even want to have it appraised.  Accurate outside evaluations and an awareness of the Endowment Effect can make the difference between hanging on and letting go.

Almost every person I’ve ever worked with has had an albatross or two hanging around, causing guilt or feeling like a curse.  How about you?  What’s your albatross?  What makes it valuable to you?  How accurately are you assessing that value? What other types of value could you ascribe to it that might make it easier to release?  I’d love to hear your thoughts and your stories, just click below to comment.

~ Andrea

** Per Wikipedia the word albatross is sometimes used metaphorically to mean a psychological burden that feels like a curse. 

*** ICD Class (HRD-510)-Junk: Digging Through America’s Love Affair with Stuff by Alison Stewart