Erica Watson-Currie, Ph.D

Or: What's the shelf life on your memories? How much do we save, display, preserve that has little or no intrinsic value; but we've imbued with meaning because of how it was acquired? You will still have the memory - even without the item; but parting with the object can still feel like a loss. Why? Because psychologically you've created a paired association. Advertisers do this all the time to trick us into purchasing a product because we like their spokes-model, or because they're donating a few pennies to one of our pet causes. Our minds just work this way. Biologically, it's because the limbic system which controls emotions is physically linked in to our memory storage. It's also close to the place where your brain processes smells, so if an item smells good you will likely find it especially difficult to part with. Here's a new way to break those associations, and start letting go - or at least paring down!