In my oodles of spare time lately I've been trying to cut down on the unnecessities of life. You know those things that you really don't need but you keep around because who knows, you may need them one day. Like...
Clothes. They are sometimes tough to discard, especially if you don't know when you'll have the $means$ to replenish. But I've been doing it. Anything I haven't worn in the last year...maybe two... Is a goner. See ya, would't want to be ya. There is no room for sentimental value here...ok there might be a little. I will probably keep the hard rock cafe shirt that I bought in Paris.
Shoes are little harder to eliminate because no matter how out of style those thick black Dansko Mary Janes that I wore on my mission are, they still fit. And they always will. You can always depend on shoes. No matter how many inches find their way to your hips, the shoes will fit. Thus shoes are begging for a spot in the keep pile. No matter. I am cutting back. The Danskos and others have been sent to a better place.
My paper collection has been drastically minimized. I said good-bye to old bank statements (they're all online now), recipes magazines (once again...online), old ensigns (online), electronics' manuals I no longer own (I'm sure I could find them online if I needed to). Old school papers I kept because I was sure I would need to reference them in my promising career. (Outdated and most likely online.) A huge thanks to the world wide web for helping me simplify my life.
Textbooks from my freshman and sophomore years of college. Gone. I decided since I haven't read them in the last ten years, or even referred to them, I was probably safe to discard them.
DVD cases are out in the big blue bin. Yes, I paused to think about this toss. But I decided that it would make my transient life so much easier and I would rather have the DVDs zipped up in a case rather than looking cluttered on a shelf. So I tossed the cases.
Books. Yeah, they may always have a place in the keep pile. I love them too much. But I have gotten rid of a few I've read once and probably won't read again. I have also gotten rid of a few the duplicates. I guess I only need one.
Music. The elimination process has not been limited to just the physical materials, it also includes the clutter in the digital sphere. Like the tunes in my iTunes that I can't remember why I thought they were cool are an obvious "delete". There is also the music that I have grown out of. Who knew that it could happen to more than just clothes. The recycle bin has been emptied so there is no going back to see if they still fit. Hopefully this doesn't come back to haunt me when I go looking for a specific song I knew I had at one time.
Throwing things out feels almost as good as losing 10 pounds. And it requires a lot less effort. I like it.
