A Cloud-a-Day Keeps the Conflict Away!

When the House Is Full of Stuff

06/10/2010 21:51

Are you annoyed because of more and more stuff in your home? Is it more and more difficult for you to keep your home in order? Or, you must to deal with someone in your neighborhood having that problem? Do you wonder what can be done with it?
Asked to imagine how she would feel if a hurricane were to strike and destroy all but a few possessions, one woman said: "What I felt most at the idea of losing everything was relief—being freed of my mess without the anxiety of sorting out and letting go."
The example clearly shows that dealing with one’s own possessions can cause painful internal conflicts to someone. And, when clutter gets out of control, it can cause also external conflicts, with other family members, or with neighbors, for example.
 

The Process

When we illustrate the whole process of accumulation of possessions at home, we quickly realize that the problem consists of two categories of stuff:
1. The stuff that is already at home.
2. The stuff that is coming in.

 

Should I Throw It Out?

Most of us probably know it from their own experience. In our hands, we have a thing that we do not need but for some reasons we are not able to throw that thing out. 


 

In most cases, the reasons are the following:

  • Possible future need. (“Better to save it than to be sorry later.”)

  • Sentimental attachment. (“My grandmother gave this to me.”)

  • Potential value. (“It might be worth something someday.”)

  • Lack of wear or damage. (“This is too good to throw away.”)

     

The reasons mentioned above are at the same time also assumptions that we have within the internal conflict "SAVE IT x THROW IT OUT". The true power of the Evaporating Cloud method is especially in disclosing of invalid assumptions we may have. When you will have something in your hands again and again you will be going to use one of the above (or other) „reason“, ask yourself:

Is this the REAL reason, or I flatter myself just in order to save the respective thing even further?
 

Should I Buy It? Should I Bring It Home?

The main cause why possessions accumulate at home is that we bring them home (we buy them, get them, or pick them up somewhere). If there is no possesion, there is also no "SAVE IT x THROW IT OUT" dilemma.

 

It is interesting that, for most people, this dilemma is much less painful that the dilemma "SAVE IT x THROW IT OUT“. Try to find out why. They simply buy the thing and bring it home. They realize that they have a problem as late as they have to move somewhere else or the clutter gets out of control.
 

Distinguish Causes and Effects

We can diagram the whole problem like this:

 

For successful conflicts resolution, it is necessary to distinguish causes and effects.

Who is not doing it, he is like a fairy tale hero fighting a dragon with many heads. When he cuts off one head, another springs up. The dragon can be killed only by hitting to its heart.
 

The dilemma "BRING IT HOME x DO NOT BRING IT HOME" is much more important that the one "SAVE IT x THROW IT OUT" because of focusing on the real cause of the problem.

We can achieve better success in fighting the accumulation of possessions at home if we concentrate on the second dilemma dealing with what we bring home.

 

Let us ask questions based on our Cloud diagram [and try to answer them honestly]:
  • AB – In order to be happy, we must have as much possessions as possible, because... 
    [Is it true? Why am I reasoning that way?]

  • AC – In order to be happy, we must keep our home in order, because... 
    [Is it true? Why am I reasoning that way?]

  • BD – In order to have as much possessions as possible, we must bring in everything we like, because... 
    [Is it true? Why am I reasoning that way?]

  • CD’ – In order to keep our home in order, we must bring in everything we like, because... 
    [Is it true? Why am I reasoning that way?]

  • DD‘– Bringing in and not bringing in home everything we like are mutually exclusive, because... 
    [Is it true? Why am I reasoning that way?]

     

Topic: When the House Is Full of Stuff

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