Much of our clutter is rooted in false assumptions about our reality.
Aspirational clutter is clutter you accumulate because you believe that owning a given item (or items) is the primary roadblock to you achieving something that you believe you should do.
For example, go find a minimalism/simplicity advocate who believes you should prepare most of your food at home. If they’re not gluten intolerant, and they don’t already own one, there’s a fair bet they would like to own a KitchenAid stand mixer.
This is because KitchenAid stand mixers are great for making bread, cakes, meringues, and all sorts of other things. And the available attachments let you do even more with it – everything from making pasta to grinding meat.
In the hands of somebody who does a lot of grain-based food preparation, it’s an awesome tool.
And it’s also how the “shop at home” channels pitch the product.
“Look at this stand mixer. You can easily make bread, cakes, meringue pies, and so much more! And with our special attachment package, available at a great discount today, you can grind your own ground beef, grind ham for ham salad, and even make your own stuffed ravioli. Look how easy this is!”
And on many levels, they’re right. It does make it a lot easier.
Now take Suzy Q Officeworker (or James Q Officeworker, if you prefer), and plunk them in front of that television.
It plays on a desire in the back of their mind.
A lot of people have a subtle guilt in the back of their minds about not being able to cook.
They want cooking to be easier. This mixer makes cooking easier. Ergo, they should buy this mixer!
The problem with that logic is that it makes cooking easier for people who already know something about cooking. Somebody who bakes bread three times a week will save a lot of time by letting the mixer do the kneading for them, but the mixer won’t turn somebody who can’t bake a frozen pizza into an expert baker.
And while the ravioli stuffer might be the answer to an Italian grandmother’s prayers, it won’t turn somebody that can’t boil water into an Italian chef.
It’s not saying that the person who can’t bake a frozen pizza without burning it can’t learn to bake, or that the person who can’t boil water is incapable of learning how to stuff ravioli. It is, however, saying that a $350 stand mixer isn’t a direct route from point A to point B.
Intermediate Experiences
The problem is that the problem the mixer solves isn’t the problem the viewer has.
The viewer has an “I can’t make bread at home” problem. Solving this problem properly for a basic white bread requires learning a bit about flour types, yeast proofing, measuring flour correctly, mixing and kneading, rise times and methods, punching down and shaping, and baking times/temperatures.
That stuff can be learned in an hour or two on the Internet, and it’s not that difficult – especially if you’re using a “no fail” bread recipe – but that knowledge doesn’t come with the mixer.
The mixer just takes mixing and kneading out of the process. It assumes you already know everything else.
Given that, what’s the logical first step to solving the actual problem?
Dipping A Toe In
Rather than dropping $350 on a fancy mixer that may never get used again, it’s easy enough to find a “minimum solution” to test whether or not the aspirational goal is even reasonable.
If somebody wants to make their own basic white bread, the process actually isn’t that hard. Flour, water, yeast, a sturdy spoon, a bowl, and a loaf pan. They could buy everything for $15 at WalMart, spend a couple hours on a Saturday surfing the Internet for a good “no fail recipe”, and give it a go.
In that process, they’ll get some firsthand experience. They’ll figure out what works, and what doesn’t work. And most importantly, they’ll figure out whether this process seems like it’s worth the effort to them.
How’s The Water?
If they give it a shot, and discover that they don’t even like the bread they’re able to make, they’re out some time and a few bucks worth of ingredients.
If they discover that they’d absolutely love making homemade bread if it wasn’t for the mixing and kneading, they now have a problem that can actually be solved by purchasing a stand mixer.
Learning To Swim
This applies to almost everything. Want to start running? You don’t need $300 shoes or fancy equipment – put 100 miles on some inexpensive sneakers. Want to take up crafting? Buy a basic set of starter supplies and see how you like it before you max out your credit card, or even better – find an intro class where they provide the starter supplies. Want to learn a foreign language? Look for some free online resources to get started before you sink $500 into fancy software.
Once you know what you love, you can always get the better shoes, the nicer crafting tools, or the fancy software.
And you’ll have more money and space for what you love, because it won’t be clogged with the tangible memories of failed commitments.