Naturally, humans are hoarders. At this point, I don’t think we can even begin to deny this aspect of our lives. We try to hold onto everything because, according to us, they hold some form of sentimental and emotional value. Now, it won’t matter if that thing would be better off somewhere else where it would be serving off things that would actually be beneficial, or other times, us not having it in our lives would not really change the status of who we are.
But no, we just love to hold on to things. We hold on tight and refuse to let go, as if that would take away something from our personality. But then, do we fight this? As a matter of fact, we see it as normal. However, I’ve come to regard such habits as suspicious because they cause you to focus on holding onto what you gathered in the past, and they don’t leave much room for what you can gather in the present, thereby missing out on a lot.
This weekend, I realized that I was running out of space on my phone, and I decided to take my time to do a clean sweep and delete things I didn’t want. Going through the storage data, I saw that I had up to 30GB worth of pictures and 50GB worth of videos. Now, are these movies? No! Just normal videos I make myself for my content, and other random fun videos I make. Then, along with video clips I download, memes, and whatnot. All in all, I had 80GB worth of free space just tied up like that. So yeah, of course I wanted to clear it all up.
Many of these videos and pictures date as far back as 2024, when I got the phone, which was when I started taking pictures and making videos. And since then, I’ve not really sat down to do anything about them because when I have a space problem, I clear out cached files, and that always serves me. But I was done with these temporary solutions.
The thing is, when I tried to delete them, I was finding it hard to. Because every picture I took, every video I made, I could remember the exact moment I took them. They meant something, and I didn’t just want to lose them like that. So many pictures that I had even forgotten about, I found them all again. You see, the funny thing here is that I rarely go through my gallery unless I have something specific I’m looking for.
So, these memories I ‘record’ I don’t even go through them to say that they’re serving their purpose. But yet, when I wanted to delete them, I felt bad about doing it. Well, I deleted a lot of them. Not everything, but I was able to clear up at least 50GB worth of space for myself. Which is good enough for now.
And thinking about it inspired this post. A lot of us record just about everything we go through in life. You record yourself at the pool, at your wedding, your birthday party, when you’re having fun. But then, how many times do you actually go back to look at those images and videos? The fun pictures you took last year, when last did you look at them?
This also happens with material things. We hoard clothes, shoes, toys, bags… we own them, and we refuse others from taking them because we don’t want to lose them. But then, when last did you actually wear those dresses? When last did you use that thing? Why not just let them go, clear up your wardrobe so more clothes can come in? Delete those pictures and videos so that there will be space for more pictures and videos to come in.
This is why I always say that it’s always better to enjoy the moment instead of focusing on recording it. If you’re at a carnival or a concert, enjoy it fully! Because if you’re focusing on recording yourself enjoying it, that picture and video will simply be gathering dust in your phone’s gallery. And pretty soon, you’ll clear it up for more space. If it’s for material things, use them and enjoy them, so that it will be easier to let them go. So that tomorrow you won’t be saying that you only wore that dress three times, but you will refuse to wear it a fourth time, and also refuse to give it out to someone who needs it.
Let’s stop being hoarders.
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