Need to Lose Some Weight?

I’m writing here about the weight of our collective “stuff.”   While watching TV the other night, an advertisement for storage facility rentals caught my attention.  I made the comment that if there’s not room in our house for our things, we probably just have too many things.  (I concede large recreational vehicles—RV’s, boats, etc.--which perhaps do need their own containment structures.)

The possessions featured in this particular ad were extra clothes, furniture, kitchen appliances, computers, toys, yard decorations, sports equipment, tools—you know—the things we all think we’ll use “sometime” that end up in unlabeled boxes.  And the solution for containing these items was renting a storage facility.  

How did it get this way?  Most of the houses we live in are bigger than they used to be, have larger closets, and yet we manage to fill up the space and still need more.  Is it because it is just easier now to buy things with credit cards and on-line shopping? Do we chase some illusive dream that having the latest update of technology will help us make better use of our time?

Do you really want to feel lighter?  If so, take an honest look at what you already have before replacing it; give things away to organizations that really need them; sell items if there is still value in them.  Craigslist really does work.

As Anna Quindlen says in her book, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, “…my new mantra, and it applies to almost everything (is) …I already have one.  I bet you do, too.”