At the end of October, I started my annual “retrospective”. I am taking the next month or so to stand back and look over my past year. I am asking myself – what worked? What didn’t work? Where can I do better? What do I want to continue? What am I ready to let go of?
With that in mind, yesterday I spoke with an attorney friend of mine who said that there was a movement in the city of San Francisco for each person to own only 100 things. 100 things! Talk about simplifying your life! I said that I would fail immediately with books, but he smiled and said that I could own an electronic reader and have all my books there – so that would only be one thing. So maybe not quite as simple as I thought, but still, 100 things?
He said it included everything – clothes, furniture, computers, even kitchen goods! So of course, being the cook that I am, I had to ask about how one could possibly do that with kitchen goods. He said that they keep only one plate, one cup, one set of flatware, one pot, one pan, and very little else. My immediate comment? They could never have a dinner party!
My friend said that was true, but then he asked me when was the last time I had a dinner party? He had me there. I haven’t had a dinner party in a long time. I keep hoping to make that happen, but the reality is that it has not. So I have a lot of stuff for “maybe” and “some day” but not “now”.
Maybe 100 things isn’t such an unrealistic objective. If I let go of all the maybe’s, and should’s, and some day’s, and I-just-might-need-that’s, I could probably get fairly close – at least as long as I could get all my books into my iPad!
I think I am going to go see where I can further simplify my life right now. I doubt I’ll get to 100 things, but I certainly can get a lot closer than I am right now! How about you? What 100 things would you want to keep? And what creative ways could you find to keep more than you think (like e-books, scanned pictures, and mp3s)? Let me know. I would love to hear your ideas! Enjoy!