Dumped

The BBC America Channel is showing Dumped, a show about eleven people living for three weeks in a dump to highlight the mountain of trash thrown away needlessly in Britain. They are encouraged to find new ways to use trash and to recycle and make money from as much of it as possible. It is interesting to watch them become excited when a truckload of "new" items are dumped on their home. It just goes to show, that even when living in a trash heap, people still desire more.

If you don't want to throw it away, don't buy it in the first place.

The Comfort of Clutter

I have an old teddy bear (who is missing both his eyes and is full of holes with stuffing coming out) who has traveled with me around the world, AND I would never give him up for the world. No matter how beat up and battered he gets.

There are some items in our lives that contain great memories or feelings of comfort and losing these items could greatly affect our feelings. Hopefully this attachment is limited to just one or two items instead of twenty. Sometimes we feel more comfortable if we are surrounded by items of comfort, like a nest.

But what happens if a fire or other destructive force were to take these items away? The loss of that comfort could be drastic, depending on your dependence.

Comfort should be found in a well-lived life, good friends, loving family members and a respected career ... not things. Keeping the comfort items to a minimum eliminates the feeling of having to constantly watch after and care for these items that seem to protect us from the outside world.