1000 Flowers for the Planet - #181 Avoid Hoarding
Judging by the number of television
shows based on the issue of hoarding it would appear this has become quite an
issue for modern society. I know that in my own lifetime we have come to own a
lot more stuff. I’d suggest that’s the right word for it too – stuff. Just things. Possessions. We
should be careful about what or who is doing the possessing – do you own your
things or do your possessions own you?
Having lots of stuff can be a way of
avoiding the real issues that haunt us. We may be covering up a desperate
feeling of being unloved, or an immense feeling of loss after a loved one has
died. We may be trying to keep up with the Joneses and didn’t notice when
things got out of hand. Whatever the root cause of the problem is, it is
important to seek professional help.
For those of us who do not think we
have a hoarding problem, or who know we definitely don’t, it is important not
to fall into a way of hoarding in the future. Hoarding not only becomes an
issue for the hoarder and their family in the short term as people live in
difficult or even unacceptable circumstances, there is also a second generation
problem, which is that once a hoarder is deceased, someone has to take over the
situation and deal with the hoard. Usually all the stuff will be taken to
landfill and this has even more knock-on effects that are detrimental to the
planet. Hoarding leads to landfill, carbon emissions, financial cost, wasted natural
resources and environmental destruction.
Take a good look around you. The best
solution is to avoid hoarding in the first place.
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