Picture the jumbled mountains of knickknacks and clutter on the hit TV series Hoarders. It’s easy to dismiss such extreme cases as rarities, anomalies beyond “my” reality. “I can’t be that person or those people,” we might be quick to declare. Yet, beneath this spectacle lies an uncomfortable truth: a reflection of our broader cultural flirtation with materialism and a window into our psyche that could well mirror our hidden tendencies—tendencies we often overlook until they spill out of our closets and drawers, demanding attention.
Consider a story that haunts me: a once-revered clergy member passed away, leaving behind a bedroom barricaded with countless never-opened bottles of wine, water, and decades of accumulated debris, some tantalizingly aromatic with age. He was a man of faith sworn to temperance, yet inexplicably tethered to possessions he had never used nor would. This striking juxtaposition begs the question: is hoarding merely the physical manifestation of something deeper, more pervasive?
Defining Hoarding
Hoarding is not reserved for the avid collector or the chronic shopaholic alone; it travels across the spectrum. From the innocent pile of ‘just in case’ items to the chaos of a life overrun by accumulation, hoarding is the beast that feasts on our need for ‘more.’
But let’s keep our definition simple—a hoarder is anyone who amasses things they don’t truly need and remains unwilling to let them go. Those things could be anything: clothes, gadgets, collectibles, or memories. How about those apps and phone or laptop downloads you have never used for years? You don’t know their use or why they are there, but the hoard doesn’t want them trashed.
We sense we will need them someday, but more than four years have passed, and we still need to remember them. Meanwhile, more data is consumed, pollution piles, and we, our environment, and fresh nature are worse for it. When hoarding becomes a disorder as is often the case, it requires empathy.
The Psychological Aspect of Hoarding
Our possessions are extensions of our identities, representing who we are, were, or aspire to be. To be sure, we want those things because they are the kinds from which we derive gratification.
But when does collecting become hoarding? When do keepsakes turn into chains? The psychology of hoarding is deeply rooted in emotional attachment to objects, fear of need, and anxiety-driven compulsions to save for hypothetical futures that rarely unfold. There is also the lure to belong, to be seen as having things everyone else at the time craved. In short, our hoards are the extension of our unspoken desires.
The Societal Impact of Hoarding
Hoarding has real-world implications, percolating through our social fabric like fumes from a hidden smolder. It presents not just psychological concerns but health risks, social isolation, and, in severe cases, a tinderbox for disaster. It’s a harbinger of a deeper societal issue—a value system that conflates having with being, amassing with achieving.
For the hoarder, without that stuff in their living space, a hole within is created. Life becomes simply empty, boring, and meaningless. The hoard’s past is their anchor, and the present is a footnote to the past unless it wins the laurel of being the past, too. Unfortunately, the past the hoarder’s psyche adores is the facade representation of stuff, not their life’s core values.
Thus, the hoarder isolates himself and makes friends with minions of hoards piled in every corner of the room. Socializing and opening the windows and doors to others to share the hoarder’s space threatens their version of security, safety, and sacred space.
Recognizing and Addressing Tendencies
Destashing is more than a home organization trend. It’s about assessing our lives, discerning wants from needs, and pushing forward on the path of personal and spiritual growth. Don’t we think it is time to confront our attachment head-on, with compassionate but firm resolve? It’s about appreciating the ephemeral nature of material possessions while learning to live light, free, and unencumbered by things that stealthily sequester us from life’s true essence.
Jesus’ instruction to the Apostles in Mark chapter six (7-12) to take “only” what they needed for the task ahead is classic wisdom on nipping hoarding in the bud. In a culture that encourages consumerism and excess, the Bible reminds us to seek the kingdom of God first, not stuff.
Conclusion
This epidemic of excess isn’t one of scarcity but of abundance misguided. Escaping the gravitational pull of hoarding requires us to revisit Jesus’s advice on detachment, renew our faith in providence, and rediscover our allegiance to service over self. It’s a communal call to mindfulness that advocates for discernment in possession, liberation in letting go, and the celebration of space not as a vacuum but as a realm brimming with possibilities.
It might start with a small act, such as donating those unworn shoes, unread books, or unused gadgets. Also, simple things like trashing those apps you don’t need from your phone make a difference in data consumption. But it ends with a life rich in experience, not excess. We regain physical space and mental peace as we move towards a leaner, more intentional existence. It’s about shedding the weight that shifts our focus from living effectively to living defensively—surrounded by relics of the past and barricades against an uncertain future.
The time to act is now. Let’s rewrite our relationship with things. Let’s not wait for another episode of Hoarders to stir us into transient pity or morbid fascination. Instead, let’s harness that momentum into permanent, constructive change—away from the clutches of hoarding and into the embrace of a truly abundant life.
