Declutter and Desire

We just returned from a 10-day trip with two luggage for our family of four. I was reminded of a thought that came to me last year after I returned from a 5-weeklong trip – we didn’t need that many clothes, shoes or bags to live. With my 6-year-old daughter, we lived that 5 weeks only on a big luggage. I kept this in mind as I decluttered my house.

Declutter

I am a hoarder. So when we downsized our house, I had it tough when clearing the unnecessary stuff. I was feeling stressed about whether to throw something out or not. Then 1.5 years later, we downsized again. God knew I couldn’t take such a big shrink in space and gave me a buffer – to clear once before another round.

Through the processes, I learned that the state of the house reflects the state of the mind. A messy house means messy thoughts in the mind. A house with hoarded things, means a mind with hoarded thoughts – thoughts no longer healthy or necessary for us. They’re just there to take up space and burden the mind.

If I am cluttering the house, it means I am cluttering my mind too, vice versa with decluttering. In the process of decluttering my house, my mind declutters too. If I learn to let go of things I have not used in a long time, I am freeing up space in my mind too.That means my mind becomes less stressed and weighed down with thoughts too.

Desire

Freeing up the house doesn’t mean making space for more unnecessary things.

Most of us have desires for material possessions. We want what others have – that limited edition shoes or bags, that shiny car or that luxurious house. We accumulate to be the envy of others, only to find that there’s no upper limit of when to stop.

Or we feel victorious at snagging the discounts or promotions during that 6.6 sale, the year-end or neverending sales. We save only to find that we are spending more on unnecessary stuff that we give away or sell at a discount in the end.

Or we buy to get the dopamine hit. We get happy, only to find that it’s short-lived and we have to keep increasing the drug dosage (of buys).

I had this topic in mind but didn’t work on it. Then interestingly, on the day of writing this post, I read two books about material wants and desires. The first book is in Chinese by He Quan Feng (何权峰), the line in the photo below translates as “Don’t let luxury become necessity.”

In the devotional by Timothy Keller, he talks about being trapped by our desires. And how do we get out of it? I quote him, “Only if we cultivate our relationship to God and grow the desire for him will our other desires not entrap us.”

I know this post is for me too. Recently, I have been desiring something so much it became too unhealthy for my soul. I prayed hard for it, thinking I would be happy only if God provided that thing for me. I was upset why He didn’t provide. I was discontented. But even if He did provide, history has proven that the happiness from getting what I want would be short-lived and human discontentment would set in. But I also don’t want to have the orphan spirit that believes God doesn’t care about our wants. He does.

But when we desire more of God, everything else fades away. And ultimately, we need to know the truth to prioritise our desires. The truth is that only God can fully satisfy us. Knowing this will help us to know what we should pursue – God or goods.

If you are entrapped by clutter and desire, would you join me to declutter life, and desire more of Him and less of the world?

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