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It’s Independence Day, where Americans across the country go nuts celebrating our independence from Britain.
We might be independent from Britain, but we sure aren’t independent from our stuff.
Our homes are getting bigger (but are housing fewer people per unit), our consumer debt is rising, and almost 10% of us use our hard-earned money to pay for storage for our extra stuff.
Just in my own neighborhood, a self-storage company recently bought a big plot of land that had previously held six different stores — so they could build another storage building catty-corner to their current one.
And not only is all this stuff costing us money — it’s also harming the environment. It takes a lot of resources to harvest, refine, make, package, ship, sell, and store the latest and greatest thing.
So this Independence Day, let’s talk about freedom from stuff.
Freedom From Stuff
Now, I’m not saying you need to ditch all your worldly possessions and go live in a cave. (That is, unless you want to do that, in which case you do you.) But I am saying that mindfully choosing what you buy and what you keep is helpful in a lot of ways.
What if, instead of going to the mall or the closest Target when you get bored, you choose to stay home and learn a new skill?
What if, instead of impulsively grabbing processed, packaged junk at the supermarket, you commit to only shopping on a full stomach and sticking to a grocery list?
What if you use the winter holidays as a reason to give rather than receive?
Imagine It
What would you do with a fuller savings account? With more space in your house? With less time spent dusting and tidying up? With never having to dig through piles trying to find what you need, because there aren’t any piles anymore?
What if you got rid of your eight thousand novelty mugs and only kept your favorite one? What if you only had one purse? One coat? One towel? How would that change what you buy and how you care for it?
What if you ditched single-use plastic? What if you ditched plastic entirely? What if you ditched conventional stores and instead thrifted, bartered, or borrowed for what you need?
It boils down to this:
If you get rid of stuff, what will you have room for?
Fundamental Changes
When America freed itself from Britain we fundamentally changed the course of history. Nothing would look the same worldwide today without our independence.
Freeing yourself from stuff will create a fundamental change in the course of your own journey: in how you live, in where you spend your energy, and in the choices you make.
With freedom from stuff, new paths and opportunities open. Will you choose to take them?
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