This post is inspired by this article.
I hear it every day.
Eat clean food, as fresh as possible.
Eat raw foods. Grow your own garden. Can your own things.
Eat healthy. Don't eat fast food. Don't drink nonfiltered water.
Declutter your home. Get rid of all the things you don't need. Keep your house as clean as possible. Remove all the excess stuff. You don't need it anyway.
Understand, I have no problem with anyone who does these things. Some of my favorite people live like this and in no way do they preach it like it's some kind of moral high ground. However, outside of my personal life, many people do preach this. They believe that what and how you eat is a moral choice. How your home looks is a moral choice. What kind of car you drive and how often you drive it is a moral choice.
For them, I suppose, it is.
It isn't for all of us.
Take Friday, for instance. My roommate and I had to make several stops before going home. Shopping was awful and took longer than expected. It was hot. when we were driving by the bank, it was already 96 and by that time, we'd been out in the heat for two hours. He took in the majority of the groceries, but the ones I had to gather were a nightmare. I had to pause and sit in the laundry room just to summon enough strength to get to the kitchen and unload things.
Do you think we had the energy to cook after that? We certainly did not. Before we got home, we picked up enough cheap items at a fast food place to get us through two meals. We had some leftovers for dinner. A whole day without much meal prep and it was, for two people who are not in the best of health, as good as we could do.
On occasion, I have decluttered things, but I will never be one to live a minimalist life. I was raised by people of the Depression. I hold on to things (books, bags, plastic containers) because I know they're useful. Before throwing away anything, I look it over to decide if I can make use of it. I'm by no means a hoarder, but I'll never be someone who can easily part with things.
If someone offers me something they want to get rid of, I almost always say yes. It's how I got my iTouch. Free yarn will be the basis for half my Christmas gifts this year. I'm very grateful for the things given to me because they make a massive difference in my life. One time my brother offered me a sink and part of a counter. I knew I didn't have room for it, so I turned him down. To this day, I still wonder if I made the wrong decision. I've actually drawn out the ways I could have altered my kitchen had I taken that stupid sink.
Poor people keep things around, yes. We have the same TV we've had for like 14 years. It's not a flat screen, but it still works so we keep it. I have a cushion on my bed from a sectional that finally fell apart so completely that we had to have it hauled off. I kept the cushions, as old and tattered as they were, until they broke into nothingness. I would never get rid of a couch without keeping the cushions if they were still functional. They can always be useful.
Is all this just a rant to justify my materialism? It's okay if you want to believe that. It's fine. And for some people, who have more means, perhaps it even would be. Just so long as you keep in mind that for the poor, for the sick, for the lonely, and especially for people who may be all of this, the items in their lives are often the difference between having a small measure of comfort and despair.
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