Clearing the clutter

Many years ago I was made redundant. This was quite a shock to me, as I had always considered myself to be a good worker, giving value for money to my employer, going the "extra mile" when required.

I blamed myself, as I thought it was my fault - but when I saw who was kept and who was fired, I saw that there was no reason (other than the management having a "plan" to reduce costs ) to choose one over another.

So, what to do?

At that time, things were, economically speaking, quite difficult and the prospect of paid employment was quite low. I knew computers, book-keeping, computer games, the meat industry and how to talk to people. I really liked playing computer (and console games) and as I had been in the console games sector, I thought I would see what could be done in that area.
Realizing that retail premises were not an option, I went mobile. I started a market stall selling the console games of the day (Super Nintendo, MegaDrive, Neo-Geo (look it up!) etc. ). The business kept me afloat until the PlayStation and other CD based formats came to the fore. Since they were easily copied, they followed the way of the PC and put many legitimate sellers out of business.
Shame, but that's life.

Fast forward 10+ years.

Our loft is getting added insulation soon, so it had to be cleared out. While in the process of doing so, I came upon the remnants of my console games selling business. I found an Atari Jaguar console (no games, so useless), an American SNES (Super Nintendo) still in its original box (no games, no "universal" adapter), an Amstrad 664 home computer (with disks), several hundred Commodore 64 games on cartridge and tape, and an MSX home computer (circa 1983), many spares for many different consoles and a lot of leads etc that were just plain useless.
I suppose I could have had a good old wallow in the nostalgia evoked by these items, but, you know what? I dumped them. Unceremoniously. Without real thought.
Why?
Because they were useless. Because they brought nothing to my life now. Because they had been sitting in my loft for 10 years, never looked at.

The sum total of what I kept from the loft clear out was my chess board and pieces, and some financial papers that needed shredding.

I am currently in paid employment, with the prospect of being made redundant yet again. As we know, economic times are hard (again). My base skill set hasn't changed much, but the world has.

So, what to do?

Haven't got a clue, really.

But at least my loft is empty.