It is my observation that many people are unable to progress toward what they desire because of how daunting the process is. Lacking is time, energy, and mind (or motivation). The process is abandoned before it ever begins.
When I moved from Milwaukee to Beacon, I took a huge step forward minimalistically. I was able to put more time and energy into alleviating my apartment and my life of physical objects. Where before the process had been a slow and mindful transformation, the goal of moving and taking only what properly fit in my 4-door Grand Am focused and quickened my efforts. Still, a limiting factor was finding a place - a new, good home - for all of my unwanted things. An overwhelming task, it seems, for an in progress minimalist is finding places/people to which to rid the excess.
As a conscious individual, I am aware of waste; that awareness set me on this path to begin with. There does exist great need by a great many people. If most people have some instead of having most, then everyone's needs can be met. But is every thing needed? Much in the same way that I progressed to the realization that what I had was plenty more than enough, and what was more was no good to me, I progressed toward the realization that most of it was no good to anyone. Certainly some of what I intended to deaccession could be needed by someone, but I came to see that an overwhelming majority was best to be eliminated and not pawned off on some other person.
Our sentimentality makes us human, but it also makes us clingy. Even when we "let go" of our own attachment to an object, we hold onto the idea of that attachment, and apply it to others (side note: I am attempting to further avoid using "we" and language that reads as if my observations are truths). To say it simply, what I came to realize is that a good home does not need to be found for an unneeded object. One does not cancel out the other.
