When collecting no longer brings joy

"Is my collection alive or dead?"

We are all collectors in some way, it seems to be baked into being human. Some collect beautiful things at random, others have hobbies that require certain materials, and in some cases the collection is digital (photos on your phone, anyone?).

Of course, collections can be a healthy way to occupy your free time, but they can easily take a turn towards the dark side, when collecting becomes an obsession. "Collection" can mean many things, though...

First, there is the collection that has accumulated more or less organically: you may have that little jam jar full of seashells from wherever you went to a beach. It’s not really important to know where each shell comes from, it’s just a habit you have developed – picking up a seashell is part of the experience when walking on a beach. The same could be said about a bookshelf with books you have read and wish to read again at some point. As long as you occasionally curate that bookshelf and remove books you realise you’ll never read again, all is fine.

But then there are collections that indicate signs of obsessive behaviour: if it’s all about owning them all (“gotta catch them all” Pokémon) and not actually doing anything but chasing, adding and then forgetting about the item … then you are not really curating a collection, but you are living out your obsessive behaviour. The joy you get from this kind of collection is not in the actual items but the short-lived act of collecting!

It’s important to recognise the difference when you start assessing if you have too much of a good thing.

Another example for this kind of consideration is dealing with your child’s artwork. Everything is precious when it first is presented to you, but once you place it in a memory box it easily ends up being just something you collect, but not enjoy.

A similar situation presents itself when you buy every single book of one author and you hang on to all of them, even the ones you didn’t really enjoy reading and are unlikely to ever pick up again.

There is also a difference between a living collection and a dead one, as I have learned through personal experience. I have built a coin collection over many decades – nothing fancy, just circulation coins – searching out flea markets and occasionally buying coins as I had more funds available.

But then I realised that I had lost interest in the collection and that I only added things because I had become used to doing so. I began to reassess my collection and what it meant to me, and I quickly came to the conclusion that the collection was a zombie that was just hanging on to my habits and obsession with completion. And so I gave it up.

I would like to invite you to consider your home and think about the concept of a collection. Do you recognise long-engrained habits? Do you feel guilty about not continuing something because you have invested too much time/money already?