The 100 Thing

I just finished reading The 100 Thing Challenge by Dave Bruno. It is on my ever growing books to read list and I finally picked it up from the library. VERY interesting read, I thought. As I was reading it I contemplated the idea of trying it out for myself. I looked around my pig sty of a room and decided against it. Today I actually counted the number of shirts I own, 102. That right there puts me over the 100 limit. Plus there are all my DVDs, pants, skirts, dresses, and books. All things I would really struggle getting rid of. However, this book has inspired me to do better about the things that I purchase and bring into my personal living space as well as to dejunk alot of stuff. I have yet to get to all the dejunking but I have managed to go through some boxes and throw out notes from my high school chemistry class and things of that sort. You probably wonder why I would hang on to such nonsense for so long. My thinking was these will come in handy one day when I have kids and they are taking chemistry. I'll be able to help them.... Yea I know it sounds really dumb but I finally have freed myself from high school and college notes on the hopes that I'll actually be able to help my kids with it. All that info can be found on the Internet or at the library. It was awesome to get rid of it. I truly believe that every item that we own weighs us down. We obviously don't think about every single personal possession all day everyday but we know what we own and it all lingers in the back burner of our minds.

I have realized that I have increased my shopping/spending significantly in the past month or so. Not healthy for me to try to replace feeling empty with physical stuff, also not healthy for my "budget". Some points Mr. Bruno makes in his book that really stuck out to me were:

"Contentment is an attitudinal choice, not a buyable product."

"The truth is that our material possessions, rather than helping us understand our limits and our place in the world, regularly distort our perspective. Put a Coach purse of the keys to a BMW M series or the latest Nokia gadget in our hands and it's not uncommon for humility, respect for other people, and appreciation of our environment to drain from our brains."

"What we really want we cannot buy."

The point of this book isn't to necessarily get rid of all your stuff but to realize the whole American-style consumerism idea that we need stuff in order to be happy or to get to where we want to be. My thing is that I think buy new cute clothing will make me more confident because I will look great in it. It usually works until the new thing gets cycled into the closet with everything else that had that effect and eventually it is just another piece clothing I stare at while thinking I have nothing to wear. Which isn't true I have 102 tops to choose from that's a shirt everyday for almost a third of the year. And my shoe shelves and flip flop bin are over flowing as well. I definitely need to cut down the crap that I own and figure out the things that I like to wear and actually wear and get rid of all the rest. I hope I have the strength to make the tough decisions that I need to and be honest with myself about the things I don't wear and that as much as I say, "well I might..." that I can just get rid of it.

I am glad I read this book. I encourage you to read it too even if you don't accept the challenge, cause I certainly didn't. I still have found it very helpful and interesting to see the few struggles the author had with accepting his own challenge.  =) Thanks for reading.