If you don't have a dragon handy to defend your treasury, you may have to put on your own armor . . .
Never Give Up Your Holy Grail!
Just because some genius expert says the object you treasure is kitsch, the popular song you adore is cheesy and off-key, or the person you date is too dorky for you doesn’t mean you have to live by the so-called expert’s standards. If the object is radioactive, the song causes neighborhood riots and shatters windows all down the block, or the significant other is a part-time serial killer, then you should definitely be revisiting your values. Otherwise, winnow down your oddities to the ones that serve and please you well, and keep a relatively low profile with them where it keeps the peace. And then enjoy your little eccentricities. You are, after all, unique.
No matter what you treasure, you may be called upon one day to make a choice . . .
Never be Unwilling to Throw Out Your Holy Grail!
If the time comes when honest reassessment of your most treasured effects, whether they’re objects or ideas, leads you to the realization that they’re not what you once thought they were, can you do the brave, smart thing and amend the situation? Can you not only let go of your sacred cow but give it a firm boot in the behind and get it out of your barn altogether? Things, beliefs, even people—those ingredients of your life that once had a revered place in you—can change. You can change.
The past never snuffs out of existence, but you can put it in its appropriate place and give yourself permission to turn to better, more present things. Only if you’re willing to haul off and pitch away what you once held dear, vigorously and decisively, can you start afresh. The loss stings madly for a bit, and discarding anything you once adored generally tends to feel like misbehavior, but if you’ve really embraced the transformation, when the pain recedes that missing part can be replaced with better and richer possibilities, and your new life and new self are infinitely worth the trouble.
One man's treasure is another man's trash . . . one woman's trash is another's treasure . . .
Art-Colored Glasses 
Sacred cows often make the best hamburger! 🙂
😉
Oh dear! I think this means that I am not going to be allowed to start hoarding isn’t it?
All joking aside, it is painful to part with those “things”, those ideas, those beliefs, and for me especially – those people who need to be part of the past. I can brutally cut them and make it quick, efficient and permanent, but it doesn’t come without regret.
I tend to look on it as a sort of math problem: some regret is pretty much guaranteed, so I have to decide whether staying as-is or making real change will be a *greater* cause for regret. Not a perfect “system”, but it gets me started thinking at least.
And keep in mind that this *is* Miss Magpie talking here, so yes, I have had to clean house of my collected shiny treasures once or twice in my life–and have NO regrets on that aspect of letting go, when I finally get up the gumption. Kind of surprises me every time. Go figure!
I tend to see things in black and white when it is time to let them go and that can be a good thing and a bad thing!
Funny that I have just being mulling over the idea that I might do some major decluttering in the new year. I had’t thought about reexamining some of the ideas and beliefs that are rooted in my mind, maybe it might be a good time to put some of them under the microscope.
I definitely need to root around my mental attic occasionally and see what’s just too cobwebbed to be useful anymore!!
Don’t throw that stuff out, it might be GOOD! wait i want that old glass and that rusty thing, they can go in my treasure box with the other rusty treasure thingys. OK I am back. I hear this all the time from my husband and mother in law! I am the great thower outerer of the family! Preachin’ to the choir darlin’! c
I think I’m bipolar on this topic, going through phases of piling up things (tangible and emotional) willy-nilly and then occasional manic bouts of clearing-out that feel so wonderful I wonder afterward why I let the other phase take over at all, let alone for any length of time!
You can be so cruel sometimes! I need to “attack” a closet and had planned on doing it today. Procrastinator that I am, I thought that I would get to it once I got caught up reading some posts. I get to your post and this is my reward? All right then. Time to back away from the Mac and get to work. Meanie!
Don’t worry, I’ll still be here when you get back. Though I will readily admit to being a cruel taskmistress from time to time. 🙂
Calling it a ‘collection’ doesn’t make it anything more than a bunch of half-inch long pencil stubs…
(I said to the 13 year old who wouldn’t clean up her own room)
Sometimes I have to think back to that day, and heed my own words…
I’ll tell you, it’s *hard* finding balance between my neatnik genetics and the artist who loves to make mixed media collages and sculptures out of all kinds of such not-collectibles!!
Where do we draw the line between collecting and hoarding, just checking and OCD, neurosis and psychosis, right and wrong?
*Good* questions!!! If I ever get the slightest clue on that, I’ll let you know. 🙂