March 27th, 2009 @ 7:52 am
I was trying to explain to my boys a little bit about the problems with all of the “stuff” we accumulate. How our world only has so much space to put our old stuff that we throw away. I tried to keep it simple but in a way to explain why it’s important not to just keep buying more stuff without a good reason. We have SO MUCH stuff in our house – it’s crazy. I was talking with a friend about how amazing it is that we can just fill up a trash bag of total junk out of the toy closet every few months – stuff that doesn’t work, random pieces that used to go to something etc.
It has become one of my newest obsessions (yes, it’s probably driving friends and family nuts…). I keep thinking about how I’d love a new couch, a new dining room set and a new rug. But we don’t NEED any of that. I just want it. What we have is fine. Is it my favorite? Nope. Will we win a House Beautiful award? Definitely not. But we don’t need to get more stuff, then have to throw our stuff out just because.
So this got me thinking more. I had heard about this amazing woman, Annie Leonard, who wrote about The Story of Stuff. WOW! This is amazing! I can’t believe I hadn’t seen it before. I really recommend that you watch it when you have a few minutes. She is very engaging, totally not “preachy”, and the whole video is really interesting and amusing to watch. It’s absolutely amazing and yes, somewhat hard to hear. But really – I think every American should watch it. Actually, I think every politician, lobbyist and big business exec should watch it.
One of the most interesting points I thought she made was her correlation between the rise in consumption and decline in happiness in the US. She says it in a funny yet depressing way!
Anyway – please check it out. I know you’ll be glad you did!
