In a previous post, I listed several mind shifts to help tame your IRD (Inner Reluctant Discarder.) Let’s dive into this one:

Ask yourself if you have the ability to predict the future.

When you’re making decluttering decisions, one of your IRD (Inner Reluctant Discarder)’s favorite thought weapons is:
”But what if I need this one day?”

Let’s get the (mostly) unhelpful logic assaults out of the way first before we unpack this:

Well, even if you did need another potato masher, you can buy another one for $4.99 at Walmart.
And you only use a potato masher twice a year anyway.
And here you have two potato mashers, making the drawer hard to close.
And if you saved everything you could possibly need in the future, then even if you did need it, (which you won’t) , you wouldn’t be able to find it anyway!

Here’s a fundamental question: Why is it so important to you to be prepared for any possible need or want in the future?

For many reluctant discarders, there may have been a time in their life when they didn’t have enough.

Or even if they did have enough, they were shamed for being wasteful by the adults in their lives.

Or maybe there times when they survived adverse events (poverty, divorce, illness) by having been resourceful.

When they saved money or time by having the right thing at the right time.

By making do.

And they are proud of themselves for that.

And through the decades, their lives and fortunes have changed.
Stuff isn’t as expensive as it once was.
Stuff built up in their homes.
Stuff became the problem, not the solution.

It’s habitual to fall back on old survival strategies, even when they no longer serve us.

Here’s what’s difficult:
It’s difficult to become comfortable with uncertainty.
It’s hard to think that maybe it isn’t our job to be the one with enough Bandaids and flashlights for the entire neighborhood. Or an extra potato masher.
It’s uncomfortable to accept that if we find ourselves needing another potato masher at some point in the future, it’s okay to go buy another one.

Because at the moment we decided to let the 2nd potato masher go, we realized that this object, and 100’s of other objects in our home that we had no past or present use for, were robbing us of our ability to enjoy our home in the present.

It’s okay not be The Keeper of All Things for Every Possible Future Need or Want of Everyone Including Me.

And here’s the ultimate Hard Thing:
To accept that no matter how much we may want to know the future,
no matter how hard we study past patterns or occurrences or hurts or wants or needs, we don’t know the future.
No matter how much we examine and analyze and think and worry, we will not wake up tomorrow with the ability to predict the future.
In the past, we never knew the future. We just had a few lucky guesses along the way.

Smashing our crystal ball, and trusting only the present, brings lightness and joy.
Because we will accept that we have every object we need right here, right now.

And our IRD is tamed for now.