I think I have written about this before, so my apologies in advance; then again, this blog seems to be about coming back to the same topics, ideas, and thoughts over and over. I suppose that is often a good thing, but I also know that I am a classic overthinker, so what for some people can be “staying mindful” can also be me dwelling on things and spiraling.

Anyway, this thing that I keep coming back to is the idea of obligation. It’s, of coruse, a fact of life; after all, we have obligations of bills and taxes and while I could choose to not pay them, I know I have to deal with the consequences. There are also obligations that you have to family and other loved ones. But then there’s the sense of obligation that comes about regarding the stuff we own.

It starts at an early age and it’s usually coupled with some form of guilt.

“Why aren’t you playing with this? We spent a lot of money on it and it was really hard to find.”

“Make sure you wear the sweater that Aunt Gladys bought you so she can see you in it.”

“Oh, you’re getting rid of this? But it was a gift from Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Anthony and they both died of cancer in 1988. They’d be heartbroken to hear that you don’t want it anymore.”

When we get older and have our own money to spend, each item has some sort of sunk-cost fallacy attached to it, which I know contributes to the hoarder mentality in a lot of people. That can lead to all sorts of problems and all sorts of stuff just piling up.

I’m writing this on Black Friday, the unofficial holiday in America where we celebrate material consumption. Now, I’m not going to look down my nose at people who are tripping over one another at Target this morning–in fact, I’ll probably go to Target this afternoon just to get out of the house for a little while–but I do find it frustrating how we have built so much of our culture around not just buying stuff, but a competition to see who can get the lowest price or best deal on something they ultimately don’t need, like a television or a low-end laptop. Of couse, I’m barreling toward 50 and have reached the point where I own so many things that I don’t need to Supermarket Sweet the DVD aisle at Walmart. At the same time, I have a gift-giving list and worry tht there “won’t be enough” for everyone to open on Christmas morning.

It’s a lovely cycle, isn’t it?

Now, buying is one thing; getting rid of things is something else. I’m not the first person to notice that guilt can be attached to the things I own, and as I look at updating my lists, I find myself feeling a little bit bad about not wanting to read a book or watch a movie that I plunked down money for. What exactly was the point of buying it if I was just going to turn around and get rid of it? So … it sits there until the next cycle comes along.

Wow, breaking something as ingrained as this obligation and guilt complex is tougher than I realized.

When the end of December and beginning of January roll around, I’m going to take another inventory of what I have, rework my lists, and start off-loading a bunch of stuff. Then, I’m going to try and up this experiment a little. Maybe it’ll be more restriction as to what I am buying; maybe it’s going to be significant periods of buying nothing. I’m not sure yet. I do know that I am going to employ a decision tree.

I would have re-created this as a graphic, but that would go against the way that I tally the uncollecting by hand every month; besides, I drew this up and was too lazy to re-do it in PowerPoint or something.

I can’t remember the last time I actually created one of these flow charts, so I cannot tell you whether or not I did this correctly. I will say that there are some easy decisions to make and a few are going to be harder.

For example, when something is saved to a list and I don’t own a physical copy, I’m asking if I can get it for “free”, which means either from the library or a streaming service I already subscribe to (and which I already use enough as it is). If not? Well, why did I even put it down? And then I ask myself: how long has this sat on a list or in a queue and why don’t I just watch it or read it?

But then there’s the “Yes” pile, which has more thought attached to it. I tried to e as practical as possible, especially when it comes down to things I own and have owned for years. I don’t want to attach too much emotional or sentimental value to the things that I have owned for a long time, but there’s some stuff I’m just not yet ready to get rid of. I think keeping it for one year and then evaluating it again makes sense, though. That way, I can see what’s been cleared out around it and if that needs to go as well.

Again, I think that to most people this would make sense and I’m just really behind everyone else–the feeling I always have as the “dumbest kid in the honors class”–but everyone needs their own moment, right? I mean, turning around to someone and chiding them for just thinking about this is doing nothing except showing that you’re a self-righteous prick. Anyway, I’m going to spend what’s left of November finishing up the few war comics I have left to read (a handful of the late-1980s Blackhawk series) and trying to get through the book I’ve been reading about the Vietnam War (it’s not bad, but it’s just hard to get back into after I have put it down). I’ll still read and watch in December, too, but I’ll also be doing a lot of that reevaluating so that in January I can come back with a set of accurate numbers and an honest approach.