The Grinch: That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? That’s what it’s always been *about*. Gifts, gifts… gifts, gifts, gifts, gifts, gifts! You wanna know what happens to your gifts? They all come to me. In your garbage. You see what I’m saying? In your *garbage*. I could hang myself with all the bad Christmas neckties I found at the dump. And the avarice…
[shouts]
The Grinch: The avarice never ends! “I want golf clubs. I want diamonds. I want a pony so I can ride it twice, get bored and sell it to make glue.”
From How the Grinch Stole Christmas c 2000
I try to keep my post positive, and I started out today heading over to the local Goodwill donation center with my box of mins. game items when the sight that hit me. The building was so stuffed with donations that they were spilling out onto the street. The large truck that picks up the donations was packed full of the blue bins and the assistant said that it was the second pick-up of the day. It literally looked like a trash dumpster, with garbage spilling out of it! At first, my brain went to, “Oh, maybe Minimalism is really catching on!”, then I realized it was Monday and this was the post garage sale junk and spring cleaning frenzy. A sad feeling fell over me. I live in an affluent part of town where people substitute toys for time with their kids as they work ridiculous hours and there is always a huge line in the drive through of all the fast food establishments because they are too tired to fix dinner. They have big toys, big mortgages, big divorces, and big debt. They are a deeply unhappy people. My hope is that Minimalism will continue to grow, and spread to communities like mine. Money does not buy happiness, nor peace of mind. Each day I feel lighter in my spirit as I declutter my life of everything that has held me down. I am free to live the life that I was meant to live.
For those of you who are not familiar with the Mins. Game it is where you get rid of one addition item each day (starting with one on the first day) for a 30 day period. At the end of 30 days, you will have gotten rid of 465 items. For the ease of keeping track, I started on the first of June.
