We live in an excessive world. Apartments are crammed full with objects that don´t really fulfill a purpose. Genuinely, many of them are just there, because we either like to store things and can´t get rid of them or they make us feel as if self-esteem was increasing by possessing them.
Initally, stone tools were stored in households to ease life. They were utilized to sharpen a knife or prepare food. Nowadays, these kind of tools could be described as „essentials“ of every household. When I´m thinking about my household, the amount of essentials is limited and might make it for 10% of the inventory.
Other stuff like old computers or decorative items is mostly stored due to convenience. But there is also a large group of possessions I´d call representive inventory. Here we´re talking about filled bookshelves or pilled up photographs and other collections of antique pieces. They had been consumed once and don´t really have a necessity anymore. It is just nice to enjoy the atmosphere and be able to show off whenever visitors come by. In short form, they are essentials, but just when it comes to help our self-esteem.
Other than that, they bring an extra amount of work and cost and extra amount of money. You know it is nerve-racking to vacuum around a pile of photographies which are likely to fly around easily, but you store them anyways. Overall, there is a tremendous energy consumed merely by the maintenance process. We´re not anymore the ones that possess all these items and utilize them. We´re forced to maintain a whole lot of stuff without even thinking about genuinely using it again.
Sharing economy and one-for-one-approach
We should finally really take advantage of what we´re offered in sharing economy. Everybody agrees on conserving resourses but loves it to buy new and store things for decades. But that is not how a sane sharing economy runs. Obviously, it is not about buying new stuff all day long. However, its driving force is a market that is filled with used items, which are both attractive and numerous offered. Sharing economy is a circulatory system that needs to be fueled sustainably. It gets more attractive with every user and every offer. The more voluminous the snowball gets the more sustainable we are living as society. And first and foremost, it is you who profits from a well-working engine. If engine and transmission run smoothly, you´ll be the first to profit from offers that will show up as if it was Black Friday.
Plainly, you´re not to sell all your possessions at once and live like a nomad now. It is a step-by-step process to get your life lighter and get rid of a few items, which are apparently superfluos. While you´re working on this process, I want to suggest the „One-for-one“-approach. It basically means that you need to sell or discard one item out of your apartment whenever you purchase another one. It will keep your collection the size it is and therefore simplify the clearing out process on the one hand. On the other hand, it´ll make you think twice about every potential purchase in order to weigh up whether it´s necessary or not.