Emotional Attachment to Objects

What is your deep reason for attachment to objects? 

Do you ever notice your attachments to objects such as a cool sweater, a new gadget or any other thing that would make you feel bad if you lost it. Sometimes it's an object that has been part of our lives for a long time or just a short while. Sometimes it's an object that we've just acquired and have always wanted in our lives. Whatever the case, we all get attached to objects in our lives and we resist letting go of these objects to allow new things to come into our lives.

This morning I received a call that required me to act immediately on some matter or else there would be some sort of consequence. The situation required me to find a resource which I do not have access to at the moment. I guess the caller did this to jolt me into some kind of action or perhaps even make me panic. I did not want to panic then and neither do I want to panic ever (the temptation is always there though).

I sat down after the call and thought about the situation. I do not like receiving such calls and I certainly do not like to panic about something that I have no control over. Recently I also attended a business seminar and one of the things discussed was that we should get rid of the messes in our lives, whether physical, psychological or spiritual. These messes affect the smooth running of our lives and in my opinion actually indicate how smoothly our lives are running in the first place. It was also suggested that we should set a monthly goal to clean up the messes little by little. I consider the situation discussed during the phone conversation a mess in my life.

Life is about creating new paths. 

I then looked around my house and all the objects that are in it. I asked myself whether some of these objects are a mess in my life at the moment. Of course there is some clutter that I've put off throwing away for some time, but I was actually considering other, still useful objects, ones that I still use; the convenient ones.

I asked myself, "What is the deep reason for being attached to these objects? What am I or other members of my family afraid of, such that we cannot do without these objects which we don’t really need or are just cluttering our home and our lives?" I thought of the situation where someone goes out to buy objects that they don’t really need and pile them up in their home after a short period of use. Then they move onto the next purchase.

No object will ever satisfy your soul. - Dave Ramsey

Some people don't necessarily go out and purchase new things all of the time, but keep things in their lives long after their usefulness. I suppose the system of hand-me-downs, often used by low income families, also causes people to hold onto objects, where it is out of necessity that clothes, shoes etc are kept and handed down to siblings. My point here is that it is human nature to cling onto objects whether we actually need them or not.

There's need to consciously consider our attachment to objects because holding onto them might cause clutter in our homes, our minds and in our whole beings. The attachment to these objects might be the reason that new and more exciting possibilities don't easily come our way, either materially, emotionally or spiritually.

Can I find the strength to let go of the attachments I have to 'my' objects and give them away or get rid of them? What if I take the opportunity to clear my life of all the unnecessary objects in my life? Maybe if I can find the strength then I'll be able to get rid of all the other 'objects' which I had intended to get rid of in the first place. And if I have to get rid of objects, not necessarily because they are creating a mess in my life, but because I want to start afresh and make room for something new, can I find the strength then?

Come back to this blog to find out what I did and whether something new actually materialised for my family and I.

Be blessed,
Sam