Too much stuff

This past year National Geographic has been running a series of articles related to population around the world. It has been interesting to follow as the different scenarios from different countries are evaluated and how those countries adapt. The latest issue deals with how the city of Seoul, Korea has been growing up instead of out.

In this article they showed photos of families sitting in their family rooms in identical high-rise buildings. As I studied the pictures what caught my eye was how empty many of those rooms were. Then it struck me, those rooms were only empty when you compare them to typical photos you see of others here in the U. S. Gone were the variety of nick-knacks and chotchkies littering the homes in our world.

As I looked about my own home and think about the rooms of those I regularly see, I am reminded of just how much unneeded extra stuff we have that simply litter our lives. Perhaps these items give us peace and comfort to the rigors of everyday life or perhaps they are just taking up space. Would you remove stress from your life by getting rid of some of this stuff that has to be dusted and cleaned periodically? You do dust and clean it, don't you?

It doesn't seem to matter anymore what level of income you reside at. We are saturated with too much stuff littering our lives. How many more shelves of photo frames or shiny boxes do we need? And this is not limited to one income class as this phenomenon seems to stretch across all income groups.

How much more do we need? I don't think I need any more. (Although you all could buy a copy of White Staff and I'd be happy. Hey, what's one more thing?)