Republished with permission from Unclutterer. Read the original post here.
As a Professional Organizer, one of the things I've noticed over the years is that very often, people who struggle with clutter and disorganization, as well as hoarders, explain or justify their accumulation of clutter by telling themselves...
that they're keeping things because they have potential value. I often hear them say, "I kept it because it could be valuable." The client is absolutely UNSURE about the item's value but chooses to believe it has some value. And because they haven't taken the time to find out if it really IS valuable, it just becomes one of a million items they're keeping "just in case" they might be valuable. These poor people end up living in a giant pile of "potential", because they think they may be missing out on, or giving up its "value" if they get rid of something.
Hoarders live in a constant state of limbo, paralyzed by all this "potential" in the form of clutter, and it holds them back. What strikes me as particularly sad and ironic about this scenario is not only that these folks live in dismal physical environments which are sometimes unhealthy (mold, pests, vermin, etc) but even worse, this imagined "potential" prevents them from realizing their own HUMAN POTENTIAL and that's the real tragedy.
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