Eradicating Jicicitis
A friend of mine introduced me to the concept of a JIC. No, this is not related to the pseudo-Mormonistic acronym, BIC. A JIC is a person who keeps things "Just In Case". I admit to suffering from this ailment, which I have decided to name jicicitis (ji-keh-ci-tis). But I am trying to find a cure.
My mum suffers from this ailment, as well. In fact, it is most likely an inherited disease, which would explain much. Anyway, my sister Amanda has unwittingly given me the best idea for treatment yet. She has used it many times when treating my mum, and has enlisted me in the process often. The first step is to banish the sufferer from the premises. The second step is to acquire several heavy-duty, 50-gallon trash bags or cardboard boxes. The third step is to start throwing things away.
It works remarkably well. Unless you are the individual suffering from jicicitis. In which case, self-treatment is nearly impossible. But it can be done! As this is mostly a psychological problem, it takes a lot of will power to conquer. Gretch and I are trying to get rid of the excess clutter we have in our small home, but we aren't doing too well at it. And I suppose it doesn't help that I also suffer from a bookaholism.
A teacher-acquaintance of ours is changing jobs and moving classrooms, and in order to enlist my help, she bribed me with books. Lots and lots of books. So now my living room floor is covered in a couple dozen piles of books. Nothing wrong with several hundred books. But, in the process of acquring books, I've also acquired a bunch of... stuff. Old stuff.
Each time this lovely woman gave me some of this stuff, she prefaced it with the wise adage, "You never know when you'll need this!" This adage is, I believe, the root of jicicitis. And on the way home today, I discovered the response: "I know I'll never need that!" And then it is off to the dumpster the stuff goes!
Problem: Solved.
Comments
Of course, that doesn't justify why you still have your YW camp t-shirt from when you were a Mia Maid...
I once got rid of a book that I told myself I would never need -- and over the ensuing years, I have found many reasons to wish I still had that book. Never again do I want to go through that emotional dislocation.
Still, I admit it's a problem to have too much crap around the place. You should implement the long-term treatment we called 30-30--we're planning on doing it again this summer, I think. I actually found the idea on some organize-your-crap website.
The idea is simple. Each day, for 30 days, you choose 30 things to throw away. We practiced it for several weeks (long past the thirty day limit) and as you well know we still live in a cesspool of unnecessary waste. Our rules were also rather liberal, because we could count bits of trash among the 30 items, so we weren't really following the exact spirit of the exercise.
Speaking of my own things, most of the stuff that I have is stuff that I will use, provided I have the opportunity to teach. And since, at the very least, I will be able to teach my own children, I consider my boxes of crap to be most useful crap. Just as Gretch's boxes of artsy crap is important, and would lead to my demise if I ever tried to get rid of it.
However, when you have an old cardboard tube stuffed full of fast food receipts from five years ago... yeah, you suffer jicicitis.