Up until 2 weeks ago, I had a rug propped up against a corner in my living room. I bought it 2 years ago when I lived in an apartment with hardwood floors. I ended up vacating that apartment rather unexpectedly due to a fire, and aside from a brief appearance in my condo, I haven’t used the rug since then.
I kept it for a while because I liked the colours. It had taken a long time for the bf and I to choose the rug in the first place. Then I told myself that it was a waste to get rid of it, because surely I would live in a place with hardwood floors again one day. It would be my backup against potential rug-less catastrophe! It didn’t fit in my downstairs storage locker, so it sat, unused, in a corner of my living room.
I had pictures to hang on the wall beside that corner. If I could hang the pictures up, I could also get rid of the box that they were in. But I told myself that I had to wait until the rug was out of the way.
I had a side table in my storage locker which would have been perfect in that corner. If I had the table, I would have more usable space in the living room, but instead, the table sat unused in my storage locker, because the rug was in the way.
Eventually, I realized that keeping the rug wasn’t netting me any benefit. Instead, the unused rug was preventing me from enjoying and using other things that I owned. I didn’t have just one useless object, I had many! As soon as I realized that, the rug was listed on Craigslist.
It’s always hard to get rid of things, but in this case, the benefit was immediate and exponential. Up went the pictures and in went the side table. Now, I have a useful, decorated corner instead of a giant rolled up rug!
What STUFF do you own that’s holding you back? Maybe it’s an old “backup” TV you never use or an empty dresser you keep “for guests”. It could be clothes you no longer wear or books you wouldn’t re-read. Consider selling or giving away the things you don’t use or need in order to de-clutter your life and get more use out of your other possessions.
