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One To One Ratio
A while ago, a friend of mine told me that he has a strategy of decluttering at home–whenever he buys something new, he will make sure to throw away something he hasn’t used for a year, and probably will never use. I thought it was a very good strategy. I’ve been using it ever since.
This strategy not only prevents the endless accumulation of stuff, but also limits my desire to buy things on sale. As you know, I just can’t stop myself from buying discounted stuff. It doesn’t matter whether I need it or not. Whenever there’s a sale, I always feel that I don’t want to miss it. After this one-to-one strategy was installed in my mind, I have to think–do I really want to buy this 50% off item and throw away something in my closet. The answer often comes back in the form of an astounding “No”.
By the way, I haven’t practiced it on books yet, which is why the second hand books I’ve bought so far has been spilling beyond one bookshelf. I do need to throw away a bunch of them soon since one bookshelf is limit I set for myself.
One To Two Ratio
Several years ago, somebody told me that whenever he became nostalgia and thought about something good happened back home, like some special food or night markets or his nice relatives, he would think of two things that are good about his American life. So one good thing back home and two good things here. That had kept his homesickness at bay.
By the way, he was a person who lost his wife after they moved to America. His wife left him for somebody else. He has never been able to get over that. He alone ended up working very hard to support his daughter to attend the community college–at least that’s what he told me. He didn’t know how to write a check–so I helped him write his checks to pay for his daughter’s tuition and monthly expenses, which amount to $20,000 a year. His daughter also worked part time–such a good girl. As soon as she graduated, she started to work for a small company as a sales agent, with base salary and commission etc. Just as she was happy about her new job, her boss who hired her asked her to go on a business trip together. During the trip, her boss gave her “an indecent proposal”, in which he promised her a better position in the company, better salary, an apartment etc. in exchange for her agreement to provide certain services to him. She was aghast. The next day, she had to quit the job even though she liked the job. After that, she found another job in a big real estate company. And this time, she became cleverer. At the time she didn’t have a steady boyfriend yet, but she made sure that a guy she went to college with would show up with her for the interview, and she would tell people in the office that she had a steady boyfriend, just to ward off another unscrupulous person who might have a similar unseemly proposal for her.
One To Three Ratio
“Whenever you have a negative thought, you want to come up with three positive thoughts.” That’s the advice from the audiobook “Clean Up Your Mental Mess”, which I am listening to right now–another audible book on sale. I guess the negative thought is usually three times more powerful, which is why one has to think about optimistic ideas three times more.
I think this probably should be applied to news, poems, books, friends too. For example, if one watches one bad news, one want to watch three good news afterwards just to achieve some mental equilibrium. Or If one reads one sad poem, one should read three positive poems; one sorrowful book to three cheerful ones; one dejected friend to three positive friends.
I don’t know. Sometimes sad books bring catharsis; sometimes not so much.
The moon is beautiful today–so bright, so calm. Since I listed moon’s three merits, I feel like I am entitled to think one bad trait about moon, which I cannot think of any at the moment.
Haoyan Do 
As an aspiring minimalist, I have a decluttering strategy of one to as-long-as-it-takes ratio, lol. Like I could need a new toaster, but as long as I am still able to toast my bread in my frying pan, I put that off. Until the day comes when my partner can’t stand it anymore and just gets a toaster. There’s just something about stuff that bothers me. Of course, my partner is a maximalist so in our house, it’s about finding the right balance.
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I totally agree with you. Toasters are the most useless things. The problem is that when they get dirty, it is impossible to clean them. So I had to throw away my toaster and went back to my plain old pan instead. Yes, keep things simple. I mean I have to declutter all the time just because I like to buy discount stuff whether I need them or not. I still have cabinets and storage spaces to tidy up right now. I mean keeping it simple from the beginning is the best way to save oneself the headache of cleaning up later on.
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Loving the way you end this piece with such a sweet paragraph on the moon. ❤
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Thank you for your sweet encouragement. The moon is very beautiful in the last couple of days.
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These are great ideas. I also have a problem with too many books, so that won’t work for me as well.
I can’t think of any bad traits about the moon except how it doesn’t shine once a month.
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Me neither. Moon has a lot of good traits.
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One to Four Ratio: Every time I eat four healthy foods, I get to eat one junk food. Or is it it the other way around?
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I totally subscribe to your one to four ratio. We can indulge on junk food after being good for so long. After reading your comment, I need to go to the refrigerate to get a snack.
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That’s such a fascinating way to think about it. I usually combat one negative thought with one positive but I may have to switch up my ratio.
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Oh, so true. I think three positive thoughts. I think I just discussed about a friend with another friend, which makes me a little guilty. I have been a little negative. Now I am going to think about three positive things about this friend–I wish I can be more communicative on this but I don’t know how to do it. I kind want to do a little psychological experiment on people I know but I also don’t want to do it. I can’t decide which way I want to go.
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If you do decide to do, share your results with us lol. I learnt in one of my psychology classes that if you’re going to talk about to someone to someone else say something positive because it makes people associate those positive traits to you as well.
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That’s such a wonderful point. I need to know how to handle my frustration, antagonism, and complaints, which I have tried to deal with. It seems to me that I can’t completely suppress them; I can’t express them to people around me although sometimes I am triggered.
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I would recommend journalling that helps sometimes.
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I heard about keeping a journal when dealing with a narcissist. LOL. It is a great advice. When I was dealing with my narcissistic parents, they would snoop on what I wrote. It is very disturbing.
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Yeah, I think it’s a good idea since you can write down everything as proof since narcissists like to lie. I’m not surprised they read what you write as narcissists don’t like it when others keep stuff from them.
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