Making the Internet My Accountability Partner

Featured Photo by Yevhen Buzuk on Unsplash

Throughout this year I have taken strides to reduce the amount of clutter and unnecessary things in my life. If you have engaged in the conscious consumerism/minimalism/decluttering space online, you are well aware of the gripes about the commercialization of the end-of-year holidays. Somehow I did not expect to struggle as much as I did this holiday season. The irony is, despite the value I place on community and social connection, I did not give proper consideration to the way my loved ones would impact my moderation journey.

First, I do feel some need to rationalize why I misplaced my expectations. My boyfriend and I’s relationship is still on the newer side; while I see his parents, whom he lives with multiple times a week, other family members I have only met a couple of times. So I did not expect anything in the way of physical gifts from them because it is hard to give physical gifts to someone you don’t know well. In return, I gave many of his family gift cards and consumable gifts. With my own family, I was told explicitly that we would not be doing a gift exchange this year, even last year we only shared some socks.

Now I am very grateful for the thought and consideration that went into each of the physical gifts given to me. However, I found it difficult to center that gratitude when I returned home after holiday travel and realized I had a bunch of new things I needed to find a home for. So it’s not just the fact that I got physical gifts but how many I got in such a short period. Of course, I did eventually find a new normal and now I get to center appreciation for the gifts in my interactions with them moving forward.

This experience has taught me a lot. As obvious as it sounds I did not think to communicate my preferences to those I’d spend time with this holiday season. When I hear the advice to communicate your preference for non-material gifts, it usually comes from content creators whose primary focus is on buying/owning fewer things. Somehow I internalized the idea that you need to be very dedicated to specific principles to have that preference. Even though the environmental impact, the financial impact, and the clutter impact of the things I possess are important to me and something I consider in my day-to-day life, it’s not something I speak about with others, outside of this blog.

The people pleaser in me is scared to have this conversation and potentially hurt people’s feelings. However, I know I want the gifts I give to be a positive in the receiver’s life and I’m sure others feel the same. This reflection has taught me to reconsider how I gift to others. I often fear that non-item gifts can come across as thoughtless or impersonal. But in many ways prioritizing material gifts is the least considerate because I am not considering or prioritizing the impact of a material gift outside of the moment of opening. Taking the time and consideration to give gifts that fit with the receiver’s life, space, and values is going to be my M.O. moving forward.