0009: Is it in my Blood?

Every time I visit my mother, I look around her house and see that every surface, every corner, every wall, every space is her house is filled with stuff that has taken over her living space. We have talked about the reasons she keeps all that stuff and her answers have been many: “because it is important, because I need it, because I never had it before, because it cost you or your brothers/sisters money, because we might need it someday, because it belonged to you, because it was your brother/sister’s, because, because, because.” 

The more I think about decluttering my office and my home with the hopes to become a minimalist, the more I realized that, with a different set of explanations and excuses, I’m doing exactly what my mother has been doing all her life: keeping stuff because.

I wonder if I keep things I really don’t need but or meant something to me is in my blood. Like, hereditary traits such as the dimples I have because my mother has them too. Or maybe I keep all this stuff because I grew up with someone who has always kept stuff, so I see it as a normal practice. You know, “like mother, like son” type of thing. Perhaps is a combination of both.

Whatever the reasons, I know I have way too much crap in my house. My home office alone looks like a storage garage. Whether hoarding so much stuff is in my blood or not, I know things will have to change because I want a simpler life, a minimalist life. This means I need to get rid of almost everything, especially those things I kept “because.”

#carlosmanuelspeaksthetruth