Labels.
Some are good and some bad.
While I don’t like being labeled, sometimes labeling myself is a good thing.
Call me a slob?
Them’s fightin’ words.
But deciding to call myself a slob? That has been very freeing.
If someone else called me that, I would wonder what they meant. Are they calling me lazy? Inept? Gross?
But when I call myself a slob, I get to decide what it means.
Labels can help identify a problem. When my son was having health issues, we were completely dumbfounded. We had no idea what was going on, and our feeble attempts to solve an unknown problem weren’t doing anything. But after his problem was identified, we could do something about it.
It had a name. A label. It wasn’t a label we wanted to hear, but while I cried plenty of tears because of my lack of control in preventing or curing this disease, I felt relief to know what it was and what to do about it.
That’s how I feel about my self-imposed slob label. It frees me to know that I’m different, and accepting that I’m different frees me to find ways of dealing with it.
Sometimes labels can give you the freedom to act differently. Directing theatrical productions is my area of expertise. I’ve been in situations where someone asked me to help them with a production, but wasn’t willing to label me the director.
Generally, that doesn’t work. I don’t feel comfortable walking into a rehearsal and ordering people around when they don’t know who I am or where I came from. So, in these situations, I generally ask to be introduced, and publicly labeled as someone who is coming in to direct the production or fix the problems. Once I have that label, I feel complete freedom to be the bossy, confident director who expects the actors to do as I say.
The personality/action change that comes with taking on a title brings me to my point. I’m considering a label that I think could give me freedom in my home.
It’s a biggie.
I read this article recently, recommended by my friend Angie over at Many Little Blessings, about being . . . a minimalist.
I’ve heard people refer to themselves as minimalists before, but thought they were referring to a personality trait, rather than a conscious choice.
I was brought up as a maximumist. Not a real word, but totally a real thing. I’ve shared before that my mother is prepared for each and every situation that life could possibly throw at her, but that she also has the ability to keep it all in order. She spends time in my not-as-bad-as-it-could-be kitchen making gingerbread houses with my kids, and when I arrive home, she has somehow straightened all of my clutter. Even though it’s all still there, it looks infinitely better.
I’m not her. I have the maximumist tendencies, but not the ability to handle it. So I’m considering this minimalist thing. As I sit here typing, I see five bottles of glue on my desk. I’m guessing that a minimalist would only have one. And probably would choose the best, multi-purpose kind to have.
Being a minimalist is probably what my slob-brain could best handle. But really, even if I get rid of 75% of what is in this house, I’ll still be, comparatively, a maximumist.
So why bother trying?
Because the vision I see of myself as a minimalist relaxes my heart.
I truly think I could function better mentally. Getting there, as others define it, might be impossible. But calling myself a minimalist as I make stuff-reducing decisions could give me freedom.
Freedom to say:
“As a minimalist, I don’t need to keep 16 pairs of jeans when I only actually wear the pair I like.”
“As a minimalist, I don’t need to keep this Pac Man Plug and Play
“As a minimalist, there’s no reason to keep boxes of envelopes in every possible size, since I only ever use them to divide up our eating-out cash each month.”
I sincerely doubt that people who champion “minimalism” would choose me as a spokesperson. But if my decision-making could be helped by taking on this label, I may just need to go that route.
Like I said, I’m considering it . . .
I'll tell you what – you're right with this whole labeling ourselves issue. It works – whether it's a positive label or a negative label – we live up to the titles we give ourselves.
A long time ago a read a book about living a simple, minimal life and it resonated with me. Now, I wouldn't call myself a hardcore minimalist in the proper circles but I do think of myself as one (compared to the household I was raised in) and thinking that way has without a doubt helped me release many (many!) pounds of "stuff" out my front door.
Good luck to you in 2011
Wow. You are in my head again. Over the past 6 months I've found myself thinking the same thing. I WANT all this cool, fun, funky, useful stuff, but I don't seem capable of keeping it corralled. So now I find myself thinking, "My kids would rather have a mom who has the time and energy to do a simple craft with them than a mom who has a huge craft room overflowing with everything you'd need to make super cool, fun, funky, useful crafts, but can't find what we need in the mess." So I've been purging: crafts, toys, clothes, stuff. I still have a long way to go, but I'm making the journey with you.
Thanks Shelley, you give me hope.
And anon, I absolutely love the way you put that. Beautiful.
As the child of two hoarders, I have had my troubles with clutter. Now that I'm getting older, and I see many missed opportunities with my children because of the mess. I so want to be a minimalist.
But, I married a packrat. Yes, yes I did. He is the type to throw everything into a closet, empty room, box to make it seem that our house is clean, "Just for now, then we'll get back to it later". "Later" never comes. Did I mention that we have no garage or outside storage building? yes, the coolers, fishing gear and camping supplies must find a place inside our home.
Hopefully that is going to change with the new year. Goodwill will have a store in my name by the time I'm done. And then I hope to never get in this position again, hopefully. 😉
Maybe it should be your word of the year. I've done this before– where you choose a word for the year and focus on that in every aspect of your life, rather than making specific resolutions. My word a couple of years ago was "simplify" and I really tried to keep it in my focus all year long. I haven't chosen a word yet for 2011.
They were just talking about this on the radio yesterday: http://www.klove.com/blog/post/2010/12/30/My-One-Word-for-2011-.aspx which is probably why it came to mind as soon as I read your post.
i have accepted that i will never have a minimalist house, but I dont want one! I find that when my house is super clean, I am not happier, I am on edge because someone might leave something on the counter, track in dirt, leave crumbs in the family room. For me, I like a home that is lived in…and you are welcome to come over anytime, sit on the sofa, put your feet up! I think the balance is to find the level of clutter that is comfortable to you
Hi Nony,
I just want to wish you a happy new year and let you know I really enjoy reading your blog. It is not easy for me to keep a clean and organized home, or to stay on top of the clutter. I understand completely so many of the things you write. I hope 2011 brings you more victories and successes and glory to God. Thanks for your honesty and courage to be real about a real struggle so many of us face. I hope you find the wisdom to be the minimalist you want to be.
Keep looking up!
I love your posts. Sometimes they make me laugh out loud!
hi nony, i’ve been reeading through your blog every night since
a friend of mine recommended it back in march (2013). we are an aspiring zero-waste family – we started our journey 2 1/2 years ago. a large part of zero-waste is serious reducing/eliminating “stuff”. bea johnson (see sunset magazine late 2009 article featuring her and her family) is the person that inspired us to leave our clutter behind and have clean, happy, no-longer-stressing-about-clutter-and-all-the baggage-that-comes-with-it lives.
i’m literally years behind in reading your blog, i don’t know where you are on your journey now (i’m savoring reading about it and don’t want
to jump ahead) but i’ve been wondering when the word minimalist would appear. this particular post answered that question.
as a zero-waste mom well towards the minimalism end of the spectrum, , i can vouch for just how much our quality of life has improved. i don’t think we’ll ever be true minimalists, but keeping the core principles of zero-waste and minimalism in mind as we make purchases has helped my husband and me to keep the clutter down to negligible amounts.
thank you for your blog and the gems of inspiration it offers to maximumists and minimalists and everyone in between. i’m
looking forward to seeing where your journey takes you. cheers!
I was somewhat of a minimalist in College simply because I knew I could get a new anything I wanted or wait until I had a day free to go home. I was pretty miserable, but the lack of stuff wasn’t so much the issue.
Yay, I’ve almost caught up by a year. I think if minimal is from minimum, then maximal is from maximum. So I guess I’m a maximalist.
On labels, they can make a difference even to how colour is perceived.
http://boingboing.net/2011/08/12/how-language-affects-color-perception.html
Foreshadowing the day maximalist becomes a design trend! I have a kid who calls themselves a maximalist and has lovely things on display everywhere without a mess in sight (except for the animal fur. A large dog and three cats makes that inevitable). My own clutter threshold is much much lower.