I have met quite a few hoarders, but to be fair, I wasn’t close to most of them enough to influence my behaviour towards minimalism. One of my housemates is clearly a hoarder; she keeps containers of drinks and food, cases and cartons of goods she bought, and even things that don’t work anymore.
Although I have talked to her about it, she insists that they always come in handy. Sometimes, when I come to her room, she throws away some excess plastic and carton after sending that I would talk about it.
We became housemate not too long ago, and we don’t even stay in the same room, so she hasn’t really impacted me. Well, she made me more of a minimalist because I don’t wish for that lifestyle.
Although I would consider my roommate a maximalist but not a hoarder, these two words are similar but to me, they are slightly different. Looking back, they were only a few people, two to be precise, who were close to enough to impact my minimalist life.
One was my dad. When I was little, I usually considered my dad a big hoarder. I mean he would usually keep things that seemed disposable and tell us that we don’t know the value and that they would come in handy.
My dad is quite a Handyman, a do-it-yourselfer or something like that. He is creative, innovative and enjoy trying out new things. whenever something got broken, he always tried to figure out ways to fix it.
He would always admonish us not to throw away most things. We (my siblings and I) didn’t like it; to us, they were nothing but trash. Sometimes, we secretly disposed some things but his disapproval was quite strong.
But sometimes, they did coke in handy for him. There are many times he used the scraps or spares to repair things. Sometimes, he also joins items together to make something useful. Although, they did come in handy, yet not everything did; they are many things that didn’t find a use and only to be a resting places for dusts.
This idea and my dad’s hoarding habit impacted me in some ways. I thought perhaps I was a waster and that my dad was right —that maybe I could make something out of them, that maybe those stuff weren’t supposed to be trash and I just needed to find a use for them. Maybe, just maybe….
But it was quite funny because all I did was pile things up, taking up space. I wasn’t like my dad; I couldn’t find any use to them. Their only purpose was to take up space and create clutter, which I have always hated.
As I said, I thought my dad was a big hoarder but I was wrong. My Aunt was the real hoarder, when I stayed at her place, I realized how distasteful hoarding can be, at least to someone like me.
Seeing my aunt being a hoarder made me give up on it. I didn’t want to turn out like her. No! That lifestyle doesn’t belong to me. Her space was so cluttered and choked up not with important things but unnecessary items.
I thought if I continued like that, I might end up like my aunt, which I didn’t want. That life scared me into giving up hoarding. The things I hoarded wasn’t useful to me, they barely came in handy. I wasn’t so creative with scraps.
Saying that they would always come in handy wasn’t an excuse for my to keep unnecessary things.
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All images are mine.
