My in-laws are hoarders

I spent all day yesterday cleaning up my in-law’s landscaping. They are hoarders. No, not like in a funny way, but in a real way. A dangerous way. The inside of the house is full of empty boxes, with no surfaces available anywhere to put anything, spoiled food. Typical hoarding behavior.

But it didn’t stop there. Boxes stacked to the ceiling of the garage. Boxes of potatoes in the garage with vines 4’-5’ long, grabbing onto anything they can find. Really gross stuff. I won’t even go into the fridges in the garage that haven’t worked in a decade but still have food in them 🤮🤮

More than just my in-laws

Unfortunately, hoarding tendencies aren't limited to just one side of my family. There are at least a few hard-core hoarders on both sides of my family. I have an uncle on each side who basically lives in filth and squaller. I know this because I have helped each one clean up, which does nothing because it goes right back to where it was.

What in the hell does this have to do with writing about freelancing and solopreneurship?

Nothing at all...or maybe a whole lot.

See, these people all have some things in common

Mental illness

Each one of them has some kind of mental illness going on. I am not a doc or anything close to that, but I know crazy when I see it, and I see it. These family members have something going on that needs professional attention.

Broken dreams

I don’t know how to say this without it sounding woo-woo, but these people all live lives that never panned out. I can’t go into detail since they are family, but each one of them has fallen short of their aspirations.

Do broken dreams lead to severe hoarding and mental illness? I have no idea, but it appears that they do from my own personal anecdotal evidence.

Keep pushing

I am not here to dunk on my in-laws or other family members. I have six kids, so my house is in a constant state of destruction. But that is not what we are dealing with here.

People with little to no purpose are unhealthy people. I fell in love with online money because it was an immediate dopamine boost. You don’t get that thrill of buildership from a 9-5. One thing I will say is that men are builders, and if they don’t build things, their minds go idle and tend to self-sabotage. This isn’t always the case (one of my hoarder uncles is at the opposite end of the spectrum, collecting project motorcycles and other junk that he will never get to), but more often then not, when a man sits idle, his mind dissolves.

So, here is my call to action: pick something to build, and work on it. A lot. If it’s an online business, awesome! If it’s a farmstead, cool! Maybe it’s as simple as picking up a tangible, physical hobby.

But please, for your own sake and the sake of humanity, don’t squander your God-given talents glued to a Lazy Boy. Get out there and do something. Your kids and grandkids will thank you.