The Coffee Mug Philosophy of Minimalism

 

I am an avid coffee drinker.

 Growing up, my mom always had a pot brewing and I have memories of different people visiting with us, sitting at the dining room table drinking a cup of coffee. Family and friends planning to hunt in the woods behind our property would stop in and drink coffee at our house before they headed out. When they returned, they were warmed with a hot cup of coffee.

I have fond memories of talking with family and friends around the dining room table, drinking coffee. A social event, I started drinking coffee at an early age.

 I eventually gained a cupboard full of coffee mugs stacked two deep. Over decades of living and buying coffee mugs, or receiving gifts of coffee mugs, I had accumulated an incredible amount of coffee mugs. I was very proud of that huge collection of coffee mugs and loved picking one out to use when someone joined me for a cup of coffee.

 If coffee mugs were gold, I would have been rich beyond measure.

I owned coffee mugs from different churches I visited or attended. I had mugs from different places where I traveled, like Michigan, Iowa, Old Tucson, Mt. Rushmore and Wall Drug.

 Some mugs had cute sayings on them, like the coffee mug I kept from my grandmother with “Coffee, Tea or me”. I had a coffee mug from Westcourt, the senior assisted living place where my grandmother lived when she passed away. One coffee mug I had for years was one I took from work that had Rosie the Riveter on it--but it was cracked so I never used it.

 I had several photo mugs I had purchased myself. I discovered I could take a unique picture, or group of pictures and have them printed very economically on a coffee mug. One of my favorite picture mugs was a collage of photos from when several of my family joined me in learning to do Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” dance dressed up as Zombies! I made several and gave them out for Christmas that year! I made one for myself, and I still have that photo mug today.

 I had a Breaking Bad “Heisenberg” coffee mug that belonged to my late husband, that broke when I was packing up his stuff. I took a picture of the largest remaining piece…and it felt like my life at that time. Broken.

 I decided the cup, and my life, may be broken, but my life didn’t need to stay that way. I kept the picture of the broken mug, but I did not keep the mug. The mug no longer served a purpose in my life, I couldn’t drink coffee from it, and my husband was no longer alive to reminisce about how much he looked like “Heisenberg” with a hat on and a scowl on his face.

 And after years of moving multiple times, packing up the huge collection of coffee mugs in newspaper, only to unpack them later, seemed exhausting. I decided this was one area of my life I needed to minimize.

 The first “round” of coffee mug reduction was Christmas mugs. I have learned over the years that for me, there is no sense in having items that you only use, or put out, once a year. It takes space to do so, and you spend more time storing these items than you actually do enjoying them.

 The one exception I have for this is a Christmas tree and ornaments. Christmas is my favorite time of year and a joy for me—so I keep the tree and a few decorations that are special to me.

 But I do not keep the Christmas coffee mugs.

 You really can only use one coffee mug at a time. If you have guests—maybe 4-6. So, I asked myself, why keep a cupboard full of mugs that never see the light of day?

 At one point I had one of those coffee mug hangers that you mount on the wall. It displayed many of my favorite mugs. But ultimately, you couldn’t use them daily as they gathered dust and needed to be washed all the time.

 Next, I threw away any mug with a broken handle or that was cracked and not trustworthy to hold hot liquids! Otherwise, what is the point? (And yes, that meant the Rosie the Riveter mug!).

 Then I gave away every mug that didn’t either hold a special meaning for me, or I didn’t remember who it came from. Even if it was cute, had a cute picture or saying on it, if it held no special meaning or wasn’t from a special person, I re-homed it.

I gave away duplicate mugs. I can only use one mug at a time. So, why have more than one of the same mug? I know it would give me a backup if the first one broke, but then I would have to store the back-up mugs. Why store this one mug in the off chance that the first one would break, when I have other mugs that I can be using and enjoying?

 I gave away any mugs that were not “regular” sized mugs. For me, the really big mugs allowed the coffee to cool off too quickly and I liked my coffee HOT!

 The few that remained were my ultimate favorites.

 However, as much as I cherished them, if I dropped one and it broke, I spent a few minutes reminiscing about the mug, maybe even took a picture, and then I threw it away. The mug served their purpose, and my memory of the circumstances surrounding the mug were in my head, not in the physical mug.

 I did try and give them to family and friends first. I loved the thought of seeing my mugs in someone else’s cupboard and being enjoyed. If I could not find them a good home I donated them to a thrift store, Goodwill, or an organization that donated household items to those in need.

(I did have a moment of weakness once when I bought the baby Yoda mug at Hobby Lobby…I am a BIG fan of baby Yoda from Mandalorian and it was adorable! But it was too big. I don’t really like it, so I do not use it. It was a BIG mistake to buy it.)

 

What coffee mugs did I keep??

 I still have the Thriller Dance photo mug, my college alma mater mug, one my aunt gave me decades ago with “WNEM TV5” from when she worked there, a “Black Roses” mug, and one that an aunt gave me with a cute saying on it. Oh, and I have not thrown away the baby Yoda one yet.

 I have enjoyed many mugs over the years, but this is what I have decided to keep and use. I love to rotate them and use different ones every day.

 This became the overall philosophy by which I filtered my remaining possessions. My coffee mug philosophy of minimalism. Was it still useful? Did I use it? Do I remember where it came from? Do I have more than one?

 These were the filters for determining which things I was going to keep and which things I was planning to re-home. It didn’t work for everything, but for things like coffee mugs, it worked just fine.