Helping my parents move has been a pain in the backside. They don’t like getting rid of things. Instead, they like to hoard and hoard and hoard. Once they buy something, they have to keep it forever. They have two VCRs that they aren’t willing to part with. Those things with the tapes. Yeah, I know right? It’s all fun and games until someone throws their back out from lifting heavy junk.

The thing is, I know where they are coming from. I mean, I can’t really hate. I was like that myself for many years. I probably picked that up from my parents. I’ve learned a lot from them, as most kids do. Some good, others, such as hoarding everything you can get your grubby hands on, not so much. It might also be an evolutionary reason why we as humans like to collect stuff. From a survival stand point, it made sense to collect food stores while the season and weather permitted. The ones who didn’t probably died a hungry, miserable death. Ah, but how times have changed. Nowadays, the consumption and collection of stuff is so out of whack. We don’t need to hoard to survive, but our programming tells us to.

Things are moving at unprecedented speeds. This is some kind of golden age of freakishly awesome innovation in just about every discipline of science and technology. However, our biological programming still does things the old ways and just can’t keep up. Going against some of that irrational programming is a very difficult thing to do, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret; The ability to reason and change ourselves is our greatest asset as a species. On the same thought, overcoming the urge to consume and collect has been one of the most rewarding and joyous things I’ve ever done. The idea of living simply and not getting attached to things like VCRs and smart phones is akin to removing a gigantic weight off of one’s shoulders. The psychological freedom is something everyone should experience. It’s just stuff, after all. The battle takes effort, but the rewards are plentiful. Don’t get me wrong, stuff is awesome. You need stuff to do stuff, but the burden comes when getting rid of that stuff is as painful as a dentist yanking out your teeth.  We all want MORE, this is the reality, and I’m suggesting that sometimes what we want isn’t always what is best for us.