Stephen and I have a hard time throwing things away.
We used to live in a house with a crawl space. It was tough because you had to crawl to retrieve things and the area was inhabited by multi-legged creatures. I would never go in there.
Our solution came when we asked a brilliant contractor, who had done a lot of work on our house, if he could convert the crawl space into a basement.
He stopped, looked us in the eye, and said “it’s time to move”. So we did.
We found a house with a basement.
It was a wondrous play land at first. We could store anything we wanted.
But over time, we discovered the basement had a dark side. There was a price to pay for all that space. Things had a tendency to go down, but nothing ever came back up.
Before we knew it our basement was full of things we didn’t need. We felt compelled to hang onto them, on the off chance that we might need something.
The straw that broke the camel’s back came when we decided to reorganize the basement.
We found a box with Christmas lights in it labeled “bad”. The lights and the box went in the garbage.
Bad lights, bad
Now we look for opportunities to throw things away. When one of us gets rid of something (big or small), we celebrate with cheering and high-fives.
We have a long way to go but we’re making progress.
I’m going to hold onto my mannequin legs though, because you never know, we might need them.
May the farce be with you!
Your IFF,
Pam
I need these
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About the Author
Pam Waits has more than 20 years of experience in human resources with 10 years in the top HR spot for mid-sized companies. She currently works as a Human Resources consultant. Additionally, she holds a Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology.
Pam is also a writer and humorist, defying the perception that human resource professionals lack a sense of humor. She’s a leader who believes humor is an important part of a healthy business culture and a necessary part of life. If you’re too busy to laugh, you’re too busy.
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The mannequin legs are only valuable because there are shoes on the feet.
It would be a tragedy if you were preparing a video for your business and one of the scenes required upside down mannequin legs and you were foolish enough to have thrown them out.
Or worse yet, were unable to find shoes to fit.