Have you ever heard anyone sigh and say, “I wish I had more stuff cluttering up my life!”
Sure, you will hear people wish for individual things – new towels, a rice cooker maybe, an iPad -but more clutter?
Not likely.
Most people I know want to simplify. They want to downsize. They want to dig out. They want to be free of the mess, the dust bunnies, the crowding, the spill-over, the time- wasting, the constant moving of things in the way, the perpetual putting away of things out of place.
What people really want is more contentment, joy, fulfillment, satisfaction, quality time, and plain old down-time. The main reason they don’t have those things is because they’re busy taking care of all their stuff!
And yet … we still hold on to the slim hope that everything we need is out there at a big box store or strip mall somewhere. Savvy entrepreneurs have made fortunes selling everything from singing big-mouth bass to banana slicers, so there’s obviously very little we could possibly need that isn’t already on store shelves … right?
What we’re looking for MUST be out there – we just haven’t found it yet!
So we spend most of our non-working time in search of the things that will finally make our lives complete (or taking care of all the stuff we’ve already brought home) – and most of our working time earning the money to continue the search.
That’s funny… I’m suddenly reminded of the method used by African hunters to catch a monkey! A hunter attaches a rope to a jar that has an opening only slightly larger than a monkey’s hand. Then the hunter places food in the jar, which attracts a monkey. When the monkey reaches into the jar and grabs the food, he makes a fist too big to get back out of the jar’s small opening – but rather than drop the food, he remains stuck until the hunter throws a net over him!
The moral of the story? Unclench your fist. Let go of the stuff. Remove your hand from the trap. Walk away. DON’T just wander off in search of another jar! It’s another trap!
You won’t go “hungry.” Everything you need is right in front of you, growing on trees, free for the taking. What you need doesn’t come in a jar, a box, a bag, a blister pack, or shrink-wrap.
Believe me – if it did, the inventors of singing big-mouth bass and banana slicers would have figured that out and sold it to you by now.
Bean Pot Press 