A new challenge

Papa Bear and I really desire to live a more simple life. Less commitments, less worries, less consumerism, less "stuff". We'd like to be able to focus on the important things in life - God, our marriage, our children, extended family, church, friends. To be able to do this, we feel like we need to be less bogged down by some of the things in our life. We don't want to get to the stage where we're two ships passing in the night - Papa Bear always working to provide the money we need to maintain a certain lifestyle, me running around to three different activities with the kids after school every day. So we're going to do something about it before it gets to that stage.

I know it's a little late for New Year's Resolutions, though it is still January. And as our preacher said on Sunday, "January is the time to change. Well, anytime is the time to change." So even though it's late, I'm resolving to reduce our "stuff". I want to be a lot more conscious of what comes into our home. Does it have a purpose? Does it fit with our style? Does it fit with our goals and where we want to be at this stage of our lives? I am also aiming to reduce the things we already have. To some, this may seem like a crazy exercise. After all, more and more today society tells us we need "more, bigger and better" than the next guy. But we want to downsize. We want to simplify. So starting today, my goal is to remove three things from our house that we no longer need or love. And I will keep removing three things every day until we get down to what we really use and love. I imagine as we learn to let go of things, our definition of what we really "need" will change. I hope that we will be able to live very simply.

You have to realise that this is not an easy goal for me. As much as I desire to have less "stuff" cluttering up the spaces (and therefore our lives) around me, I am a very sentimental person. You know, one of those people who kept every letter or note written in high school. Every article of clothing that has a special story. Every soft toy I've ever owned. This is not going to be an easy journey for me, but I feel it's an important one. And as I learn to love the memories, but let go of the things, I imagine I will learn a lot about myself too. I'm excited to see where this will take us.