Why of hoarding

For those of you who do not hold onto things and do not understand why people do it here is a brief summary of why I think it happens. 
For the most part people hold onto things for two reasons, emotions and possibilities.  Let me explain.  The emotional link is a bit easier to understand.  People who hoard things hold onto items because they have an emotional attachment to them, they remind them of a time or a person in their lives.  Also most people start to hoard things after a traumatic event in their lives.  For instance when a member of their family dies they hold onto everything they can find that belonged to or reminds them of that person.  For some reason the trauma of losing that person triggers the hoarder to cling to things that have a connection to the person they lost. 
The concept of possibilities and potential is more difficult to understand.  For someone who  hoards each item they hold into has inherent possibilities.  That stack of coffee cans will become a shelf one day, the stack of magazines will become a collage of meaningful pictures or artwork.  For the people who don't hoard it is just a stack of junk that should be thrown away but to the hoarder it is a dream, a promise of the future, a way to make their life better.  They see only what it could be or what it can become if only a little work could be put into it.  But over time all the possibilities and promise builds up and becomes overwhelming. 
So part of the reason why it is so difficult for hoarders to cast off items is that each item is full of emotional connection and potential.