Survey #186 Response from Anonymous user
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| Statement #1: When I give valuable things to friends or family, I worry that they will turn around and give them away. |
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| Statement #2: When I give something away, I accept that I have no further claim to it, which gives me peace of mind. |
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| Statement #3: I only give things on the condition that the recipients will involve me in any decisions about the future disposition of things I’ve given them. |
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| Statement #4: I find it discouraging when I give useful and valuable things to friends and family who don't appreciate it. |
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| Statement #5: Worrying about what happens to things after you give them away is letting stuff hold too much power over you. |
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| Statement #6: It means a lot to me that my children recognize and understand the importance and value of items from our family’s history. |
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| Statement #7: Even though my stuff has become a burden in my life, it’s hard to let go of good things to people who don’t appreciate them. |
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| Statement #8: Remaining attached to our stuff and feeling like we need to find a good home for each item arises out of a need to remain in control. |
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| Statement #9: When people don’t want the thing you give to them, it isn’t a judgment on you or the value of your gift. |
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| What factors do you consider when you’re thinking about giving things away to family members, friends, neighbors, or other people you know? | Their interests and personalities, timing and age- if a child’s taste is fully formed or if they might like something later on, if they will use it right away or soon (I found out my grandmother was influencing my cousin to keep things I gave her, and I no longer want to give her anything because she never uses it, just keeps it for years), if it’s creating a clutter problem for them, if someone else might have better use for it, | ||||||||||
| What factors do you consider when you’re thinking about donating items to a charity, shelter, or unknown recipient? | The charity’s cause, who it’s audience is, how easy it is for me to get to it, if I might be embarrassed by the items I’m giving (old artwork for examlple), how easy it is for them to duspose it if they don’t like it, if it’s usable or fixable, if I might miss the item later, I try to think it’ll maje my life better overall: if I’m gifting really good and expensive books, that I’ll be around smarter people somehow, and if I’m donating good clothes to people who don’t care much about cotton or quality, that they might now experience wearing clothes that might feel better - or they might not prefer this at all. Sometimes I try not to think about any of this, but trust that I’ll feel so much better with less things to worry about- and if these things are useful to someone else , hooray! And also to trust that if I’m somewhat careful about how and where I dispose of this stuff, it’ll somehow reach wherever it needs to reach- and the quicker I do this, the more likely it is. Easier said than done, though, sometimes. | ||||||||||
| What is your all-time favorite hand-me-down, cast-off, or regifted item? | A sweater from a friend’s older sister 🙂 and more recently, while on a one month trip, a real wool sweater that felt like a hug, and kept me so warm when I had to packed properly. Relieved to have given away some old artwork (still loads more), and some (not all just yet ugh) language learning books. The books felt like pressure, to study these languages and I also felt like they actually left no room for me to learn anything new from them because they were from college, and my brain kept being flooded by old memories of random things on the way to French class, rather than being able to take in the new stuff(!) still, even though so much language learning has gone online, I still still have Some books remaining (!) | ||||||||||
| Here’s your chance to ask Gayle and Ed any question you’re curious about. It need not be related to this survey’s topic(s). | Thanks for what you do! How do you keep yourself believing in abundance, especially as you have your own businesses in a precarious economy ? Even though I find that I have more of a feeling of abundance and trust in the universe when I give things away, I don’t always feel this. I try to remind myself that it’s exactly in a precarious economy that this junk might actually be useful to someone else and not be landfill. Now is the time. Before the item itself gets unusable. How do you reach the audience that is right for you? Did this happen naturally? | ||||||||||
| Future topics | Cultivating a feeling of abundance |
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