Every Monday I post Real Life Minimalists, a profile of one of my readers in their own words. If you’d like to participate, click here for details.
Today, I’m happy to introduce you to Zsolt, whose cultural upbringing has given him a unique perspective on hoarding and minimalism. Be sure to visit his blog to read more.
Zsolt writes:
Most of you people reading this have probably been lucky enough not to have experienced life in a socialist dictatorship. I was 6 years old when the political transitions happened in Hungary so I can’t say I have experienced it either. But the mindset that 40 years of socialism imposed upon society, didn’t evaporate from one day to another.
Under the socialist regime, the Hungarian standard of living was way below that of the American or Western European. Something had to be done to give people an illusion of prosperity in order to keep political stability.
One thing they did was they eradicated unemployment. Everybody had a job. Some kind of a job at least. A lot of these were jobs that had no purpose whatsoever other than making the statistics look better and keeping up the grand illusion.
The other thing they did was they generously overlooked people nicking things from work. Or in other words, they institutionalized corruption. Doctors got paid peanuts, so did hairdressers and waiters. But people would tip them, which would make up for the better half of their salary.
People who worked in factories took the products or tools home. If you worked in a paper factory, you’d take a bag of toilet paper home every day (whether you needed it or not) and trade it for car parts and tools with the guy who worked in a car factory or for eggs with the lady who worked at a farm. Many people run this to the extreme and opened their own shop in 1990 when the system collapsed to sell the stuff they accumulated from work.
I grew up in a family and a society of hoarders.
No big surprise, I became a hoarder myself. I’d keep things that I might use once every few years.
My rationale was that even though very rarely, I did use it, so I had to keep it. This way of thinking stem from my upbringing – I can see that so clearly now.
A few years ago something shifted. I realized that if I only used something every other year, I didn’t really need it. And if I did, I could always get it when I needed it. I slowly started letting things go.
By the summer of 2013, I thought I had got rid of most of the stuff I didn’t need. I was wrong of course.
I was getting ready to go long term travelling in October. All I was planning to take was a carry-on bag, 10 kg of stuff. So I had to get rid of everything else.
I gave some of the stuff away and throw the really useless crap out. To my utmost surprise I still had a truckload that I thought I needed. I took the whole lot to my parents – they didn’t mind, they love stuff…
I’ve been travelling South America with the aforementioned 10 kg backpack for 3 months now and I’ve never felt so free in my life. This radical change has taught me that stuff takes up not only physical, but mental space as well. The less stuff you have the freer your mind feels. Not to mention the amazing level of mobility it affords you. I can pack up and be on the road in 10 minutes if need be.
Minimalism is freedom.
I’m not going home in the foreseeable future, but when I do I’ll go through the truckload of stuff I dumped at my parents’ house and get rid of everything I can. For good.
I’m done with being a hoarder.
{If you’d like to learn more about minimalist living, please consider reading my book, The Joy of Less, A Minimalist Living Guide, or subscribing to my RSS feed.}
Awesome. Going against conditioning isn’t easy…
Wonderful story! Love it!
Thank you for you post! What you described what happened during the communist regime was hoarding for survival, to trade the goods for something you otherwise would’t get. Thank you for reminding us that there are many people in the world who live on much less than we do in our western, consumerized society. We call it minimalism, living with less. For many people in the world making do with limited means is just their everyday reality. I will never forget the TV documentary where people from a poor African country saw a picture of a double garage in a rich country and asked “And who lives there?”
Do you remember the name of the documentary? I would love to see it.
What a fascinating insight into both hoarding and corruption. Enjoy your freedom!
Interesting perspective. I can only relate with my Depression era family members, who hoarded just because and never cleaned out after the robust 1950’s hit. I found Tide from 1972 in my Grandmothers basement in 2003, when we cleaned out her house.
Freedom is universal. Good for you my friend!!!
Thank you for sharing your wonderful story! One of the best on this series so far!
What a fantastic story! I read it quickly to find out what happens at the end. It reminds me of when I saw the movie Chocolat with Juliette Binoche. She arrives in a small French town with her daughter and they each have only one suitcase. How envious I was/am. What wonderful freedom to be able to pack up and go. I’m looking forward to retirement in 3 years when I can sell everything and move to another city where I’ll live in less square footage and, in turn, require less stuff. Thank you for sharing!
I once moved to New Orleans with only two suitcases, it felt really liberating. When I left 8 years later, I had a big sale and sold almost everything I owned – I had amassed quite a collection of stuff. It was all valuable antique items, but I realized that I never got a chance to enjoy them, as I’d just stash them in cupboards, seeing them about once year.
I then moved to LA, withjust what would fit in my Honda Civic, and then three monyhs later,
I moved to Australia…with two suitcases.
I can’t say I miss many of the items I’ve sold, I can hardly remember them!
Great post – and I would also like to know what that documentary was that the second commentator mentioned…
@mrs Brady Old Lady – Absolutely agree, very difficult in deed. For the simple reason that you don’t know you’re conditioned and you think the believes you have are your own, but some of them have been implanted in your mind by other people. The trick that works for me is to regularly challenge even my firmest believes and change them if they prove wrong. Sometimes very hard to do, like losing a part of your identity. But that’s the only way you stand a chance to be an authentic person.
@Sascha – Please share the title of that documentary with us, we’re interested :) You make a very good point. In a way, minimalism itself, as an answer to excessive consumerism, is a symptom of the disease humanity has. I wonder if the correlation (if there is one) between economic situation and the tendency to hang on to stuff has ever been scientifically examined… On the one hand, the less you have, the more likely you are to keep everything just in case it may come useful, on the other hand the more money you have the easier it is to keep buying useless crap. Would make an interesting study…
@Mimi – Same here, I’ve been living in South America for more than 4 months now and don’t miss a thing : )
Thank you all for your kind words!
Wonderful story and wonderful insight too. I know someone from Belarus and now i think i understand him a bit better. Glad you have been able to experience frredom and throw off the shackles of old stuff, both mentally and physically.
As a hospice volunteer, I recently had a patient who was a Holocaust survivor. As her husband showed me their home, he took me to a bedroom closet they’d turned into a pantry of food, “just in case.” I saw what had to be the world’s largest jar of capers, amongst other foods. I realized that the fear of being without would last their lifetime.
Your story makes me both happy (for your liberation of “stuff”) and sad because it isn’t until our inner self is exposed that we see the forest for the trees. Sometimes I look at the things I have and the things I ‘choose’ to give up and I think, “God, what a first-world problem I have.” I have decided to really ask myself, Why am I buying this? Is it truly necessary? And at what cost was this ‘thing’ made (both resources and the human toll)?
Kudos, brother:)
Anna
I am an American and consider myself living simply with less… until I moved to Israel. It’s not exactly the typical third world state, but it’s not America either. In other words, it’s not what I was used to. Like running to the closest shopping centre anytime I ran out of something and finding the exact item I needed on the shelf.
I found myself saving items I would never consider keeping at home. Silly things like twisty ties! After some thought I came up with two reasons for this: The item is hard to come by in Israel or its too expensive to buy/replace. The twisty ties fell into the first category :-)
It’s a struggle because I don’t want the extra stuff, but my survival instinct is pretty strong and usually wins. Items back home that we find relatively easy to pay for can cost up to three to four times here, if it’s available at all.
My experience is brief, as I have only lived here for two years and plan to return to the states this year. Not enough time to have saved a lot of stuff, but it did give me some insight into a different perspective on human behaviors based on environment and culture.
@Debi – twisty ties? Could you not have simply tied a not in the bag itself (assuming that is what the ties were being used ofr)?
Thank you for sharing your perspective. This was the most enlightening post. I’m glad you were able to make the mental and emotional shift from scarcity to abundance. Happy and safe travels.
I was brought up in a rural area and have many of the same experiences. My parents were frugal people and would keep everything, just in case, because if you needed something you couldn’t just go to a store and get it. Most of our appliances had seen better days and whenever they needed fixing, we’d always have some spare parts lying around. I can see the necessity of it back then, but I kept hoarding when I moved to the city. I’d also save twisty ties, nuts and bolts, various outdated drapery, old linens (for cutting into rags), worn out clothes (for paint jobs), electric cables, paint leftovers etc that I’d never actually use. I just had them in case I’d need them someday. It took me years to kick the habit of never throwing anything away.
Both my parents were children of the Depression and one was a war orphan,too. My mother hoarded sugar, soap, paper towels, toilet paper, fabric, yarn, salad oil, and many other things. My husband’s folks always had a refrigerator plus a full freezer and a full pantry even though there were only 2 of them at home. The Recession we saw recently was not nearly so bad but it has made it’s mark on young people who have to try to live with less security, some of them working 2 part time jobs because they can’t find a full time job. I don’t believe hoarding is the answer to any problem. Things go bad, after all. I find I have 6 bars of soap, not 80. And one loaf of bread.
I saw an article in today’s paper about smaller houses and apartments. I hope this means not so many people want McMansions which cost so much to heat and cool. In 13 years we have never turned on the furnace because we live in an apartment building with a southern exposure. Even though we live in 1600 square feet, it’s the smallest home of anyone we know.
I know its been a while you posted this, but oh I wanted to say your post was very insightful for me.
I am from Brazil, but I live in Hungary with my Hungarian husband now. I have been learning and applying minimalism in my life for a while now, but not without some resistance from him. And you just clarified why my in-law’s house, that he grew up in, looks the way it does… Never thought about that!