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Even as a child, I was pretty indifferent to stuff (A 9th grade essay wanted us to write about our most prized possession and I couldn't come up with anything e
by shalmanese 17y ago
Even as a child, I was pretty indifferent to stuff (A 9th grade essay wanted us to write about our most prized possession and I couldn't come up with anything except my computer). But I think the final break for me happened when inadequate backup procedures caused me to lose several years worth of digital photos.
I was initially heartbroken but then I started thinking how many times I had actually looked at any of those photos since I took them and, for the majority of then, the answer was zero. After that, my relationship with stuff shifted radically.
A few years later, I lost a wooden spoon which was pretty much the only thing I held an emotional attachment to anymore. That thing was older than I was and had been the one constant in cooking which is a huge part of my life. I moped for a year, shrugged and got a new one.
I'm starting to seriously consider that, once a year, I will find the thing currently most precious to me and get rid of it.
- nat 17y agoIt sounds to me like you might be taking the wrong lesson away from this. Try finding the five things most precious to you and throwing away everything else. Being affected by the loss of a spoon shouldn't make you want to never love a spoon again (that way lies crappy romantic comedies). The idea here is to concentrate our attachment to objects, not eliminate it.
- fburnaby 17y agoI once felt the same way about a toque (yes, I'm Canadian).