I discovered at an early age that owning a lot of ‘stuff’ is not a blessing, but a curse. So many people are consumed by the things they own...they have so much they don’t even know what to do with it all. Unless you are a super organizer (which I am not) you realize that even a little clutter can get out of hand very quickly. Most people I know have a great depression mentality even though they never lived within 40 years of the Great Depression. They save everything, can’t throw anything away, and just buy, buy, buy...not because they need it, but because they got “Such an amazing deal!” It is an easy trap to fall into. It is called greed. It is the same disease that gets people into great debt...buying jewelry off QVC or maxing out their credit cards at Christmas with money they don’t have. I will choose to be wise and live a life of simplicity because it is so freeing! Here is a little poem I wrote when I graduated college & I realized I had a lot of junk (at that point all my worldly possessions fit in my car so it couldnt have been that bad:)

Too Much

Here, there, everywhere
Piles and piles of stuff.
No matter how much junk you buy
You just can't have enough.

It fills your desks, it fills your drawers
It fills your attics, too.
And when you think you have enough--
You go buy something new.

In closets and in storage rooms...
Garages and in sheds
And if you find there's no more room--
It goes beneath your beds.

Oh, why in all of God's green earth
Do people feel the need
To fill their shelves with artifacts
And books they'll never read?

With clothes from 1968
you"Just cant throw away!!"
And the crock pot from that yard sale
That you "know you'll use some day".

You spend your weekends sorting
Through the stuff you had to buy
It was going to make you happy
But then something went awry.

I think in the beginning you were sure
That it was true,
But in the end the stuff you own
Just ends up owning you.