More Shredding

I found the bottom of the box! I'm not completely through the entire contents... there's still a small stack left, but I'm done for tonight. It'll be very easy to finish it off tomorrow. But, in honor of finding the bottom of the box, I thought I'd show just how much shredding I've done so far (and actually, this photo doesn't show all of the bags). I have a feeling there's a lot more in my future...

Shredding

Part of what I want to document here is the process of actually becoming a minimalist. The blogs I've read so far sing the praises of how wonderful it has been to become a minimalist--how it has enhanced their lives, how it's socially responsible, how it's economically advantageous, etc. But I've yet to find blogs that describe what it was like to move from having a lot of stuff into the process of decision making and purging. Simply saying "I cut down on the stuff in my office," doesn't actually describe my experience. I did begin to cut down, but let me say it's soooo very slow! I thought I was being easy on myself by starting with my smallest room, my closet sized office, but maybe being easy on myself is more like starting with one box full of papers.

So, I started with just that: a giant box full of papers that needed to be shredded. I'm embarrassed to admit that I found items in there with dates from 2007 on them, and here it is 2011. That means those items moved with me from Georgia to New York, and then moved at least one more time from Brooklyn to Queens. Alas.

And this item, I can't believe this is here-- not even sure how it got here. This is a note written in either my grandmother's handwriting or my great grandmother's handwriting, concerning some size and price of something for my mother. It is of no material worth, nor sentimental worth (unless for the handwriting--but I don't even know whose it is!) so it is clearly garbage. I think it's worth noting, though, because clearly my tendency to hold meaningless things longer than they're useful is not just of my own making. This was written in 1968, I was born in 1977, this is 2011, and somehow this meaningless note has made it all the way to Queens. For heaven's sake!

At any rate, I got half of the box shredded. At least, I think it's half... We'll see how long the rest of the box takes. Baby steps. I'm trying to be satisfied with small steps because I can't do more than that. It feels like a pretty overwhelming task when I look at my whole apartment, but I can handle looking at this one box. And I have to say, even though there are two boxes stacked in the hallway where I pulled this box, that hallway already feels more open and spacious without this one box.

Minimalism

Through what feels like a random series of events, I have been introduced to the concept of minimalism. Now, I've seen some blogs on extreme minimalism and have watched some youtube videos of tiny houses, and this is way beyond my hopes. I feel claustrophobic just watching that! But, pairing way down is definitely my goal. I don't have a moral/political motivation right now like environmentalism or a rejection of consumerism. I don't have any particular theoretical motivation at all. What I have is a need to feel less overwhelmed in my life in general. I struggle with concentration and take adult ADD medication. I find my messy living space a difficult environment for focusing. But maintaining a clean space might be much easier if I didn't have as much stuff. There's no place for it in my NY apartment. When I had 1600 sq feet in Atlanta, it was easier to ignore. I'm in 650 sq feet here, which I think New Yorkers consider sizable. I'm trying to change my thinking about, for instance, the size of my office. It's ridiculously small in my mind. But, maybe it's just small for the amount of stuff in it. Let's see if that can change...