Statistics about stuff

• An average child will accumulate 238 toys by the time he/she is 10 years old and he/she will only play with about 12 of them.
• Annually, Americans spend more on shoes, jewelry and watches ($10 billion) than they do on higher education.
• In the U.S., there are more malls than high schools.
• The average person will spend 3680 hours (153 days or 5 months) of his/her life looking for misplaced items.  The most frequent items are phones, keys, sunglasses and paperwork.
• The average American woman owns 30 outfits - one for every day of the month.  In 1930, that figure was nine.
• Shopping malls outnumber high schools.  93% of teenage girls rank shopping as their favorite pastime.
• 80% of what we keep, we never use.

Interesting, huh?  Look at the last statistics for example.  We keep (or should keep) things because they're meaningful, right?  Yet, the statistics implies the opposite: we keep things BUT most of it is NOT even used!?!  How could this be?
Is it because we forget what we own?
Do we have so much that we DON'T EVEN KNOW what we (already) have?
Do we have a hard time letting go and that's why we keep accumulating so much... stuff?

Ever since I've moved into my new place, I have been in the state of minimizing.  I still have a LONG way to go BUT I have made a lot of progress.  For instance, I have been able to let go of clothes I don't wear (anymore).  It should be easy to get rid of them yet sometimes, I just can't.  "But I spent money on this!"  2 things keep bringing me back to reason:
-"If you haven't worn it in a year, you will not wear it, ever."
-"Let someone wear your clothes instead of letting them collect dust in your closet, you obviously don't need/like them."

My sister introduced me to her BFF, Marie Kondo.  This Japanese lady is known for her book "Art of decluttering and organizing".  (FYI, I just hyperlinked something for the 1st time!?!)  I still haven't read the book but I know it'd be good for me, sigh...  Perhaps I'm running away from the book because I'm running away from my problems...  Yeah, that's it...  But I just found the book at the library AND it also exists on CD so I could listen to Marie while driving or cleaning, hahaha.