SIMPLIFY

Making a GREAT Living

When I was younger, all I wanted to do was make a GREAT living, which to me was MAKING A LOT OF MONEY, AND HAVING TONS OF STUFF. I managed by the time I was 21 to buy my own house, a few cars, new furniture, clothes, shoes, and had tons of “friends” to go out and help me spend my “GREAT LIVING”. The only real problem was, I was not happy.

I found that owning all my crap made me almost handcuffed to a lifestyle that was really overrated, now, don’t get me wrong, I like nice things, but I have found “things” just don’t make you happy, as a matter of fact, having too many “things”, reverses the effect and makes you miserable. Having the wrong people in your life has the same effect, they become anchors. I felt like all this was closing in on me, and it had to go…..

Do You OWN Your Things or Do They OWN You?

A most important question….. Who owns What? or What owns Who?

I am not asking anyone to get rid of the “dream house” or the “dream car”, I am talking about the things you acquire for no apparent reason, the stuff, the crap.

What is so IMPORTANT about your Crap?

Recently, I was invited over to a friends house to help her “organize” her home. She was beyond frustrated by the build up of things around the house. Once I got over there, I realized why she was out of her mind, there was crap everywhere. I thought to myself, this should be a piece of cake…. We will throw it all away, and be done with it… Simple Enough Right? 

Once we got started, I realized that things were not going to be as simple as I thought, as we started to pillage through all of her families crap, and I stood by with a garden sized garbage bag, we started to make a great discovery…. EVERY SINGLE THING HAD SOME SORT OF IMPORTANCE…. How could this be?

I started to get very concerned, this is one of the dearest people in my life, and I knew she was in trouble. We went through the entire room, and moved the junk from that area to another…. OPERATION JUNK RELOCATION?

This went on for over an hour, we even came across a basket of bills to pay, a laptop on the floor, and a Nintendo DS of one of the kids.

At this point I made a choice, I could keep randomly  moving junk, or I could speak up, and find out what was going on…. Keep in mind, as we relocated the junk, my friend’s face was sad and overwhelmed. I couldn’t stand it, I love her, and her things had taken her for ransom….

I stood up….. “STOP”

She stopped.

“We have got to make a decision here, are these things important, or is you family important?” 

“My Family of course”

“Then let us make your family important, and here is how we are going to do it….”