…based on a true story.

Tonight I finally got to cleaning my room.

It made me sick.  I have so. much. stuff.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to get rid of things I don’t wear.  I started a pile and tonight I finished the process. By the time I was done exorcising my closet, I had 2 trash bags full of clothing.  About 50 articles of clothing probably, maybe more.  You would think that’d leave some extra space in my closet and dresser, but you can’t even tell anything is missing.

I feel ridiculous. Why do I have so much stuff?  How many tshirts do I need?  How many blue hoodies can one guy really own?

I’m too ashamed to post a picture of my closet busting at the seams.  I thought about cataloguing everything I kept, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.  I’m sure it would read something like 50 tshirts, 5 pairs of jeans, 6 pairs of khakis, etc.

I know that I need clothes.  I know that it’s not a bad thing to have different types of attire for different occasions and maybe even a couple of spares.  But I’m living in excess.

I’m living in excess while people don’t have a change of clothes.  People I’ve met.  People I said would change the way I live. People that live 5 miles from me.

Sometimes I can’t stand this place.  I remember one time talking to a friend about fasting.  She really felt a burden for this friend and decided she needed to make sacrifices and pray.  So she started praying an hour a day and fasted from shopping for a certain amount of months.

I don’t want to sound like a cynic here, but what kind of a culture do we live in where someone not buying things they don’t need is a sacrifice? That does sound cynical.  I don’t think her heart was in the wrong place, but do you at least get where I’m coming from?

Why do I have so much?  Why do people better than me starve to death so that their children have something to eat?  I don’t get it.

What do I do?  What is just enough?  What is too much?  Where is the balance?