{"id":1107,"date":"2012-07-11T19:03:16","date_gmt":"2012-07-12T00:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/?p=1107"},"modified":"2012-07-11T07:55:13","modified_gmt":"2012-07-11T12:55:13","slug":"treasures-from-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/2012\/07\/treasures-from-others\/","title":{"rendered":"Treasures from Others"},"content":{"rendered":"

I enjoy trying to share my excess stuff with others \u2013 friends first and then to one of the stores.\u00a0 I approach friends and ask, \u201cIs this something you\u2019d like to have?\u201d\u00a0 With one particular friend, let\u2019s call her Joanna; she almost always takes whatever I\u2019ve offered.\u00a0 After a handful of months, I noticed stacked in a corner the sugar and creamer containers Joanna had taken most recently. The last thing I want to do is add to someone else\u2019s clutter.<\/p>\n

Stuff from other people comes into our homes \u2013 one way or another \u2013 from gifts or sharing or inheritance.\u00a0 We all have them \u2013 things from those we love that don\u2019t quite fit our personality or style.\u00a0 Sometimes these are the most difficult items to make decisions about.\u00a0 It holds some value in one way or another for us.\u00a0 Is it simply the memory?\u00a0 Is it guilt?\u00a0 Is it a sense of obligation? Or is it something else entirely?<\/p>\n

When working with clients, I often ask them after hearing that it’s from someone else, \u201cDo you think this person would want to add to your clutter?\u201d<\/p>\n

I know this is the last thing I would want \u2013 it turns out I gave a gift to someone who was bothered by part of the design of it, I told them emphatically to pass it along to someone else, PLEASE.<\/p>\n

William Morris known partially for his involvement in the Arts and Crafts Movement said \u201cHave nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful<\/em> or believe to be beautiful<\/em>.\u201d If something is not useful or beautiful<\/a> to you, wherever it came from, is there a reason to keep it?<\/p>\n

The last time I visited, I saw it sitting in a corner.\u00a0 On some level it made me sad since they shared how they don\u2019t love it, yet because it was a gift from me, it stays.<\/p>\n

Maybe I have too noble expectations of people \u2013 that they too would not want to contribute to anyone else\u2019s clutter.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard for me to imagine that anyone would want someone to keep a gift that isn\u2019t adding value to his or her life and space.<\/p>\n

We each get to make decisions for our own life \u2013 is it worth it to have things around that don’t make you happy?\u00a0 Keep the lovely memory of the gift, the care from the person giving the gift, and let the item itself move into someone else\u2019s life who might treasure it dearly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We all have treasures from people we love \u2013 from gifts, sharing, and inheritance. These can cause some of the most problematic decisions about getting rid of those things \u2013 yet there\u2019s something to consider \u2013 what would they want for you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,8,18,13,19,5,17],"class_list":["post-1107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-organizing","tag-behavior","tag-discipline","tag-goals","tag-gratitude","tag-hoarding","tag-household","tag-spaces"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7p82c-hR","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1107"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1113,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107\/revisions\/1113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}