Simplifying Life: A Quick Decision

This will be the shortest "possessions" post yet. Today is Thanksgiving, and in keeping with the whole gratefulness theme, I want to make sure and spend just about every ounce of my time and energy on what's most important today. . .my family.

I've done a little thinking today about our possessions. We have too many options. I am hit bluntly with this truth every time I put dinner in front of my kids and they look at me with a scrunched up nose and whine, "We don't waaaaaant this! Can I have something else?"  Because they have always had options. If they don't feel like spaghetti, mom can make grilled cheese or eggs and toast. I can get upset at their sense of entitlement, but I'm just as guilty of it myself. My husband will ask me what I want for take-out and name off at least three fast food/restaurants and I will scrunch up my nose at all of them. With food so easily available and aplenty, we abuse our options by taking them for granted. Now I know I've got off on a food tangent, and that isn't necessarily "possessions", but bare with me. We do it with our stuff too. We walk in and out of closets morning after morning frowning and fretting about having nothing to wear. In all reality, the contents of our closets could probably clothe a small village in Nicaragua. Most families there only have enough clothing to wear while they wash the one other dirty pair. They know the value of their stuff and they don't take it for granted. How can you when it's literally all you have?

The same goes for toys. My boys have UNGODLY amounts of options when it comes to things to play with and yet they drive me crazy every time we stop by Wal-Mart and they see something else that they "just gotta have!". It's pathetic. We are working through this perspective and I feel some days we are making huge strides with them in the "being thankful for what we have means not asking for more" talks, but we still have constant relapses. They are learning, as am I with my stuff (books, DVDs, jewelry, shoes, etc) that enough is enough.

So I've made a quick decision today and it's not that huge, but it may make a huge impact. I'm downsizing our wardrobes. I'm not just giving away things that no longer fit or we don't like as much anymore. No, I'm going through our closets and narrowing our options down. I'm getting rid of all clothing except what would last us about one month. At first, that seems like we would still have a lot of clothes. You're right. But at the moment, I'm staring at my son's clothes and realizing that I could easily clothe every child a the city rescue mission and then some with just what is piled on his floor. There is no need to have that many shirts, that many pairs of pants. Why does any five-year-old boy need 9 pairs of shoes?! Really?   So there it is. . .choosing 30 outfits for each child for each season and we're donating the rest. I'll be doing this in my closet too. That is my mission this week. Heaven help me.

I also thought I'd mention, as well as "options", we in America take for granted all of life's conveniences. We take for granted that just last week, I was able to fly from Oklahoma City to Managua, Nicaragua in a matter of 5 hours. That's AMAZING and something to thank God for. A hundred years ago, it took 30 YEARS to get from one side of the country to another! (Okay, maybe that's an embellishment, but only a slight one!) We constantly gripe about how quickly things load on our iphones, how long it takes for McDonald's to give us our food in the drive-thru, and how long we have to wait at stoplights. We're getting ridiculous, people! Everything is AMAZING, and nobody is happy! Truly! Louis C.K. covered this topic in his recent interview on Conan O'Brien. Check it out here! I promise, you will be nodding your head in agreement the ENTIRE TIME!

You're welcome, friends. :)