Why Is It So Hard To Let Things Go?

The Hidden Cost Of Keeping Things

Walk into almost any Singapore home and you will probably find a cupboard, storeroom or shelf filled with things that no one has touched for years. A box of secondary school notes. Old photo albums. Birthday cards. A guitar bought with a first salary. Exercise equipment waiting to be used again. Children’s toys that nobody has the heart to throw away. None of these objects is especially large on its own. Together, they quietly occupy more space than we realise.

Many of us also grew up in households where “don’t waste” was more than practical advice. It was a value. We repaired instead of replaced, kept things that might still be useful and thought carefully before throwing anything away. Living with, or close to, our parents often means those habits continue influencing the way we think about our possessions today.

Keeping things rarely feels expensive because most of us never receive a monthly bill for the corner of our home they occupy. In Singapore, however, space is one of our most valuable resources. Every cupboard, shelf and storeroom serves multiple purposes. Every object we keep quietly competes with something else that could occupy the same space.

This raises a question that extends well beyond decluttering: what is this object still costing me?

Space Has A Price

That question becomes surprisingly tangible when we put numbers to it.

A compact self-storage locker of around sixteen square feet typically costs about S$100 to S$125 each month. Over ten years, that amounts to roughly S$12,000 to S$15,000 simply to store a handful of boxes.

Those boxes might contain secondary school textbooks, family photographs, birthday cards, old concert tickets, childhood artwork or a guitar bought with a first salary. They may also hold a treadmill we still hope to use again one day. None of these objects is wrong to keep. The calculation simply reminds us that keeping something is never free.

Even when we keep these possessions at home instead of renting storage, the cost has not disappeared. It has simply changed form. The spare room becomes a storeroom. The study becomes a place to stack unopened boxes. The exercise room quietly becomes somewhere to store an exercise bike that no longer moves. Every possession asks for space, attention and care. The longer we keep it, the more worthwhile it becomes to ask whether it has truly earned what we continue giving it.

Every Object Tells A Different Story

It is tempting to think we keep things because they are sentimental. The reality is far more interesting.

Imagine three people keeping the same old guitar. One still plays every weekend. For them, the guitar remains useful. Another has not played in years but keeps it because it was bought with their very first salary. The guitar represents independence, ambition and the excitement of beginning adult life. A third tells themselves they will start playing again “when things settle down”. The guitar no longer represents the past. It represents a future they still hope to reclaim.

The object is identical. The reason for keeping it is completely different. The same is true of almost everything we own. A treadmill may represent determination to one person, guilt to another and hope to someone else. Throwing it away can feel less like discarding a machine and more like admitting that a promise once made to ourselves was never fulfilled. A box of university notes may preserve treasured memories, professional identity or the belief that one day they might still prove useful. We are rarely deciding what to do with an object alone. We are deciding what the story behind it still means to us.

We Don’t Like Closing Chapters

This is why letting go can feel surprisingly emotional. The object is often standing in for something much larger.

Parents know this feeling well. One day, we pack away the last set of baby clothes, telling ourselves we will sort through them another time. Years pass. The clothes still fit inside the same storage box. Our children no longer fit inside our arms. We are no longer deciding whether to keep a box of clothes. We are deciding whether we are ready to accept that this chapter of family life has quietly ended.

The same happens throughout adulthood. Running shoes from a first marathon. Name cards from a previous career. Travel guides from a memorable holiday. Business books from an earlier ambition. The objects quietly remind us of the people we once were. Sometimes we are not holding on to the possession. We are holding on to the version of ourselves that came with it.

The Weight Of “Just In Case”

There is another force quietly shaping our decisions: scarcity.

What if I need this one day?

What if they stop making it?

What if someone in the family could use it?

These questions feel sensible because they protect us from future regret. Occasionally they are justified. More often, they insure us against possibilities that never arrive.

Over time, “just in case” becomes one of the largest occupants of our homes. This is where the values many of us inherited become both a strength and a challenge. Learning not to waste teaches gratitude, resourcefulness and respect for what we own. The difficulty comes when avoiding waste quietly becomes avoiding decisions. What once reflected prudence can gradually become an inability to recognise that our lives have already moved on.

What Has Earned Its Place?

None of this suggests that sentimental possessions should be discarded or that every cupboard should be emptied.

Some objects genuinely continue earning their place. A family photo album that is opened every Chinese New Year. A watch passed down through generations. A favourite armchair that still welcomes us home after a long day. Their value cannot be measured in dollars, resale prices or storage costs because they continue enriching our lives in the present.

The more difficult decisions involve objects whose purpose has quietly changed. A guitar that has not been played for fifteen years. University notes that helped us graduate decades ago. A treadmill that now serves as a clothes rack. They were never mistakes to buy, nor mistakes to keep. They did exactly what we needed them to do during that chapter of our lives.

We often assume that letting go somehow diminishes what these objects once meant to us.

It does not.

A child’s cot does not become less meaningful because our child has grown up. Marathon shoes do not become less significant because we no longer run that distance. A first briefcase does not lose its importance because we have changed careers. Their purpose was never to remain with us forever. Their purpose was to help us through a particular season of life.

This is the quieter lesson behind letting go. Not every meaningful possession is meant to become a permanent possession. Some simply stay long enough to help us become the person we were meant to be.

The objects we keep should continue earning the space, attention and care we give them.

When their purpose has been fulfilled, letting go is not an act of forgetting.

It is often an act of gratitude.