Why Keep That?

It is so easy to do.  I’ve done it, but I hope I have learned.
So often something is important to someone else and is not important to me.  I think to myself “why keep that?”  Yet so often there is a good reason to the keeper that is not necessarily understood by the one thinking something should be gotten rid of.
I am not thinking of things that are just horded for no apparent reason.  Sometimes a broom needs to go through what is being kept.  But I need to be careful that I am not saying something should go when the keeper has an attachment to the article that is perfectly reasonable.
I think of me collecting stamps.  There was a time when while working on them I realized I needed more sleeves.  I ended up spending around $500 on sleeves.  Someone not into stamps would have thought “what a waste” but then probably have spent the monies on something they were into that others do not understand and could have declared what a waste.
I like what Merril and I do with things we think need to go.  We put them in a pile and one says what they want to keep then the other goes though the remained determining if there is anything which they want to keep.  We know one another well enough to have a “no questions asked” policy.  We do not keep things just for the sake of it.
It took me a while to pick up on this. I have experienced it and seen it so often in families.  It is a real cause of friction.  What is saddest in my mind is when one dominates and gets rid of stuff that is not important to them but was important to the other.
There is no doubt in my mind it is a minefield area, but my thinking is I need to respect the wishes of another.  I may not understand but I need to always respect.