“Most people like to own things, you know, land, luggage, other people. Makes them feel secure, but all that can be taken away. In the end the only thing you really own is your story.” - Drover in Australia
Back in 2009, when the Ondoy tragedy happened, we had a few newly bought furniture at home. We live at an area in Marikina that easily gets flooded even when there's just continuous raining so our family has already gotten used to it. We've been living in this residence for years anyway. A good thing though, the floods don't usually affect the inside of our home since the design of our house was intently made for these occurrences. Until Ondoy struck. Most of our belongings lost their value.
Lesson learned: we should not get too attached to material things, humans are not made for materialism, life is not meant for materialistic ideals.
A fire can burn down and floods can wash away all properties one owns no matter how much investment was put in it. Material things are for short-term. The intangibles are not. There is more to life than keeping luxury items in your closet. There's more happiness in making one's self involved in humane and/or spiritual activities.
To be more concrete, here's an example. Let's say two young people allot the same amount of money for a stress-relieving endeavor. One purchases an LV bag, the other goes to travel. Who do you think would most likely achieve more lasting sense of peace and happiness? It's for you to answer.
Admittedly, I am materialistic. My closet is full of items which are not really useful. I keep old magazines which I do not intend to read anymore. I have clothes that are bought only because they look cute which I can't even wear for the reason that it's not my style. For some, things like such may be termed as "investments". I call them "junk".
How to get rid of junk? Here are a few ways:
1. Hold a Garage Sale - my sisters and I have been trying to limit the amount of clutter we've gathered through the years. Hence we decided to have a garage sale. We did it for a week and for each day we made sales, we earned a thousand. The income tripled on the last day. My mom decided to join us and we are planning to hold another garage sale on the first week of December.
2. Donate - I have tried donating books, clothes, shoes and other stuff to the needy people I've encountered in life, not only because I have a soft heart for the poor aged generation, but also for my old belongings to become another useful property to the materialistically poor. (I don't know why but whenever I see aged people walking alone on the streets, I oftentimes feel the need to hand them something.)
For the year 2012, I want to be different. I don't want to keep things that are not actually useful for me anymore because they might be of greater value for others. So before the year ends, I will get rid of my "junk".
My 2012 Goal: instead of being materialistically rich and intangibly okay, i hope to become materialistically okay and intangibly richer!
P.S. People, try to donate. And do it personally. The feeling it gives can't be burnt or destroyed, it's priceless.
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