The War Against Stuff....

Ok people....take a moment to look around you.  Take a good long look at your stuff.  The stuff that surrounds you in your home, the stuff that hangs out in your purse or wallet.  The stuff you just can't live without.

I think its time to wage a war.  Not against some fascist group....not against invading murauders.  Let's wage war against those sound bites and bits of adversting that tell us to go out and get stuff.  It's iPods for your ears.  Its fancy phones that take pictures, schedule your life, play music, give you directions, make movies and fries chicken.  Its the latest sneakers!  Its the right pair of pants!  Its the latest accessory!  Its the catalogue that you relax with while you contemplate getting more stuff!

Our lives are full of stuff.  So much stuff that we trip all over it, give it away, or just throw it away.  We are consumers.  Lets think about that word...consumers.  Before that word was applied to those of us with credit cards, that word was used to describe another creature...locusts.  Now when we hear the word consumer, we no longer think of flying insects that invade and consume everything around them till there is nothing left.  We think of ourselves.  Although I don't think we are much different.

Everyday I hear people saying "where does all my money go?"  Let me direct your attention to the stuff.  Stuff we don't need.  Stuff that will not make a smidge of difference in our lives but we can't bear to live without.

I am currently purging my home.  I'm looking through all my stuff seeing what I need, what I don't need.  And I am examining why I felt so strongly that I needed this stuff to begin with.  It's a slow process, but little by little, I am taking my home back and showing all the useless stuff the door.  I'm donating some stuff and I am giving it away on Freecycle.com.  This way my stuff doesn't end up in a land fill with millions of tons of other people's stuff.

Its time to wage this war on stuff.  Enough with this culture of buying.  Look at it like this, you can continue buying useless, frivolous stuff or you can save that money.  And little by little, that money will pile up.  You can use it to buy a tank of gas.  You can use it to start a savings account.  And if you don't buy all that stuff, in the end, that stuff will not end up in a land fill hurting our planet.

Enough is enough!  Say no to stuff!