Borrowing

It came up in the Clutter Busting workshop on Sunday that we are only borrowing what's in our life.

It doesn't matter how much you paid for it, whether you have a certificate of ownership, whether it's in a vault, your home, or in a storage locker, you are only borrowing it. 

What's in your life is yours as long as you are alive. If you were to die tomorrow, others would get your stuff.

Your things will be dispersed at an estate sale, or they'll be dispensed among family members and friends. Your stuff will then be owned and used by others. Until they die, and then it's on to someone else.

You're even borrowing your body. If you die and are a donor, your organs would go to people who could use them. If you are cremated, your ashes belong to someone else, and they sit it in a urn on their bookshelf. Or someone sprinkles the ashes over the land and they become part of the earth and air.

You're borrowing your spouse. If you die, chances are they'll become part of a relationship with someone else.

What's in your life could be gone in the next moment even if you are still alive. Someone you love could die or leave you, something you own could break, your home could catch fire, a possession could be stolen.

Or you could one day decide that some person, thing, or activity is no longer important to you, and let them or it go.

You have the things in your life that you have today.

That doesn't make anyone or anything less valuable to you. But thinking this way can help you let go of your attachment to things. The people and things in your life are here to be enjoyed for the time they are in your life.