While it’s always exciting to get new stuff sometimes it can be tough to make room for them, both physically and mentally. To help combat this issue author Dinah Sanders has created a new holiday that celebrates getting out with the old and in with the new. It’s called Discardia, which is a quarterly holiday celebrated during March, June, September, and December. She’s just released a new book on the holiday that serves as an introduction and guide for embracing the lifestyle.
Much more than just a quarterly spring cleaning, Discardia is a new way to look at the way we buy, use and throw away the things in our lives, helping you “carve away the nonsense of physical objects, habits, or emotional baggage, and uncover what brings you joy.” The book itself offers both practical tips and tricks that will help you get rid of the clutter in your life and a guide to avoiding it in the future.
Although a new holiday, the idea of a simpler and less cluttered life is nothing new, and in writing the book Sanders drew from several traditions such as the slow movement, downshifting, and simple living seeing her holiday as “A reconnection with those things, a reaction against the planned obsolesce, capitalism approach.”
While the goals of the Discardian lifestyle may be bold, the focus is more on small, iterative changes that you can make every day rather than completely restructuring your life. It’s an approach that allows anyone to come to the book and learn a few things, regardless of where they are, or how messy their life is.
Sanders says that there are number of websites and online resources that fit right with Discardia and make the ideas easier to carry out. “This idea of easily connecting with people and reducing the friction between I have an extra and I need an extra, it’s a very good marriage of an old instinct and an instinct that is ever more needed. I’m very excited about it.”
Swap.com is of course a great resource for finding new homes for your old stuff and making room for the stuff you really want. Sanders herself is a member of the site. “That’s one of the things that Swap is great for,” she says. “I can say these are things I don’t want anymore but I know someone else wants.”
While a lot of the book is focused on managing and dealing with the things you own and purchase, ultimately the book is focused on crafting a better life for yourself.
Sanders says she hopes the book will “encourage people to think not about what I need to change about myself…..but who do I most want to be? What do I have around me or am carrying around in my head that really doesn’t fit that, and how can I let go of that? What do I have that’s close to that, that I could tweak so it’s even more that?”
For more info and to purchase the book visit Discardia.com
Swap.com Mobile is a free iPhone is app that lets you scan items into your HAVE and WANT lists, manage your account, see what you can get for your stuff, and participate in swaps.
