Possesive posessions

Over the last few years I have been thinking about all that I have accumulated. And when you start to think about how much junk you have, you start to realise that more than half of it is useless.

When I sat down to really think about it, I reckon 99% of what I own is a burden. One I could do without.

Why are we so insistent on having all these things? Why can't we just ignore the Jones' and make our own lives happier by leaving all that crap behind and making do with what we need instead of over indulging on what we want.

I'm not going to preach and then lie. I have a life that's filled with unnecessary crap. I have a couple of laptops, when I only need one. I have a desktop PC, when I don't even need one at all. I have a TV that's too big, a fridge that's too big and if I look around at everything else. There are only two or three important things for me. My wife, my house and my guitar.

Sure, you need a fridge. And entertainment is nice. But we don't really need them. They're just conveniences. Our stove is broken, but rather than buy a new one, we just use an old burner that does the job.

I write this post because we all live a life of excess. I do it, you do it. Why?

We work. Why? To pay for these things. What if you lived off the land, you land? You wouldn't need so much work. You could get by with a few dollars, and the rest of your time you work your land. You'd have to in order to survive.

And that's really my point. The responsibility for survival has changed. No longer do you have to grow your own food or hunt it. You just buy it. You don't have to build your own dwelling. You buy a house, or pay to have one made for you.

How can a meagre lifestyle be lived in a society so full it's exploding?

Do you become an outcast? Hop in your car and drive around in the sticks?

You would have to, because if you stopped working you won't be able to afford your mortgage, rent, bills, rates, land tax, etc.

Because of this, you would be stamped as a hobo, a tramp, a bum. Why?

Because society has a preconceived image of what the ideal life should be like?

My wife and I love the idea of retiring, selling everything we have, buying a mobile home of some description and living somewhere new each day.

How will this be possible? We gotta work hard to build up savings to be able to live off them comfortably when we're not building that savings fund. With our only hope being that it lasts until we die.

That's the dark side of it all. Either way to look at it, you need money. Whether it's a little or a lot. Even the motor home will need maintenance, fuel, parts, and so on. It's going to have to be paid for somehow.

And after all that's said and done, while I have harped on about this subject in a different guise once before.... you need some cash to free yourself from this current lifestyle.

One of my friends father retired and escaped the rat race to live in the country side. He bought a place and now lives off his savings. When they get low, he goes into town and cleans windows for shop owners. Does the odd weeding for people with large properties and gets by. I guess there's always a way to do things to get by. My wife and I recently sat down to enjoy a few episodes of The River Cottage. And it's inspirational to see how someone can drop it all and go follow their passion and to see if it can be done.

Most of the people I follow in other blogs have done just that. And I'm using their thankfulness to share their experiences as a learning tool to get me started on the right path. One day I'll be able to turn around and wonder not how I accumulated all this crap, but where did it all go? Hopefully to someone else who needs it more than me. And I can set myself free from the artificial umbilical cord society grafts to you from your first breath to your last.