china, crystal glasses, and silver that were wedding gifts but that I couldn’t put in the dishwasher? Did I really need to have seasonal decor items or all those boxes of books waiting for me in the storage unit? I learned to read things, pass things on to a friend or family member, or donate things. Living in small quarters with everything I really needed was transformational!
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The convoy in your home is likely to reach its peak size as you hit middle age. That’s because your income tends to grow to its highest level later in your career, you may have more people living in your home, and you’ve simply had more time to accumulate keepsakes and gifts.
Though some items are easy to part with, shedding others can feel like losing part of yourself. “Our possessions are extensions of ourselves. All of these things in the convoy are part of our past selves, but they’re also part of our possible selves. They’re selves I could become, so I hang on to the object to accomplish that. All these cookbooks I have, I’m going to cook all those foods in there! I’m going to use those tools in the basement! Or the bicycle!” Dr. Ekerdt says.
These are just a few of the emotional attachments that hold objects securely in your material convoy. Your possessions also represent departed loved ones, happy times in your life, sad times that you can’t stop poking at, and decisions you’ve made that were brilliant or unwise. They pay tribute to the joys and sorrows that occur in every life.
Of course, you have a lot of utterly useless junk mixed in there, too.
“There are objects in the convoy that we value and that are highly significant to us. But there’s a lot in the convoy that we pay hardly any attention to, and there are things in the convoy that are completely mysterious to us, like those under the kitchen sink. We don’t even know what they are,” Dr. Ekerdt says.
When you have to separate the treasures from the trash in your material convoy, you find that it’s hard physical work. It involves squatting, lifting, carrying, and sweating.
Here’s another effect of downsizing that can cause an ache: Today a person who buys, consumes, and accumulates is typically viewed as a financially healthy and prized member of society. If an expanding material convoy means that you’re in the prime of your career and your family life, then substantially shrinking your convoy can be unsettling. (“Does this mean I’m becoming less useful to the world? Do my friends think less of me? Will I be less important if I own less stuff?”)
People in the middle of a downsizing-related transition are also often moving quickly: The older people in Dr. Ekerdt’s research typically had 2 months to handle the process. A quick deadline provides a convenient excuse (and a common trap) for those who don’t want to do the type of thoughtful downsizing that betters their lives. (“No time! I’ll just load all these boxes into the truck and deal with them on the other end.”)
Similarly, some downsizers just delegate all the decisions to a spouse or other family member (often a daughter). Or they briskly throw stuff away without letting themselves think about what they’re doing. In these cases, they may be dreading the downsizing-related milestone so much that they want to get through it as quickly as possible.
In doing so, they miss the rewards of downsizing.
At first glance, downsizing appears to be a problem of stuff: How do you deal with the accumulation of a lifetime (whether yours or someone else’s) as painlessly as possible? Overlying this concern is often the shadow of death, family drama, or an immobilizing sense of loss and grief.
However, hidden in this process are secret gifts waiting for you, but you’ll only find them if you learn how to look under these other layers of the downsizing. The new phase of your life that you’re about to enter will be much poorer if you don’t make a deeper inspection of the person who’s steering your material convoy, who is, of course, you!
Done mindlessly or in a panicked haste, downsizing can be a gut-wrenching experience. Done well, it will lead you to a better place where you’re at peace with not just your stuff, but also with your family and your life in general.
BREAK THE CYCLE AND ESCAPE TO A BETTER PLACE
For many people, modern life in America follows the course of