I don’t know why, perhaps it’s a result of the sun shining this morning, but my mind migrated immediately to solving the problems of the world today. I tried to dismiss these notions with the old, "I’m just one person... can’t do a thing" thing. But of course, that’s a cop-out. Then the old jingle came to mind, which I guess dates me, "see the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet..."
along with pictures of people stampeding through store doors, crushing one another in an attempt to be among the lucky ones getting this new thing, or that fandangled what-have-you. And so it came to me what my subconscious was trying to tell me... almost time for Spring cleaning. I guess sunshine will do that.
So I allowed my thoughts to follow through on the whole thing. It’s time again to take a look around. I even did a Fall cleaning last year in an attempt to purge the house, but it didn’t get the job done. There’s still too much stuff in here. Time to look around and ask with brutal honestly, do I need this? And I’m not going to just send what I don’t need to landfill either... that’s not on.
Suddenly an image came to mind out of my past, an intellectually disabled person sitting in a corner of the thrift store gleefully cutting the buttons off old garments that no one would want and putting them into jars. These jars of buttons were then sold for sewing or crafting. And he created a lot of button bottles, so there’s a chap who went home at the end of the day feeling very productive indeed. So for me, three piles: 1) legit garbage, 2) potential yard sale (one person’s trash and all that), 3) thrift shop give-aways. Okay, a small fourth pile... maybe I can sell this on Ebay?
Maybe I can’t do much about all the conflict in the world except to speak the language of kindness, and I can't stop all the wars mostly waged against the dispossessed and helpless. And I guess all I can really do about all the refugees that result is support my government in their efforts to help as many as possible. But I *can* do something substantial about misguided consumerism in our society by simplifying my life, as many have already done. And by making sure that what I want and need is reasonable and will be used with satisfaction and joy, and what I get rid of doesn’t just burden the environment and finds as much useful new purpose as possible.
Mission impossible? Hehehe... we shall do it anyway.
