Things

N.B. I've rediscovered my purpose for life, but reading this book: The 100 Thing Challenge by Dave Bruno. It's absolutely fantastic, highly recommended by me!

So, what's this all about you ask, and what on earth is the 100 thing challenge? Well, it is where an individual seeks to live for a certain period of time with only 100 possessions. Of course, it doesn't have to be an 100 thing challenge. It could be the 10, 25, 50, 75 or even 150 thing challenge. The number isn't important really. It's a personal challenge, with rules made up by yourself. Dave Bruno lived for an entire year with 100 possessions. I am going to do the same, if for no other reason than to keep it simple!

The rules for my challenge are as follows:

1) This is a personal challenge. The items on my list will be things that are entirely my personal possessions.

The purpose of the challenge is not to force my views upon anyone, but rather for myself to break free of any remaining constraints of consumerism that still occupy my spending habits. I will decide when the rules need to be loosened, or even broken.

2) Books. I am not intending to purge any of my books. This is for a number of reasons: 1) I have spent a lot of money buying them, 2) most of them are for college/work and the rest are for my own personal development, and 3) getting rid of them will serve no deeper purpose for breaking my consumerism habits as they are books I have bought to enhance myself, (many are ironically about consumerism) not because I think it will make me cool/trendy/ to keep up with the Joneses. So for the purpose of this challenge, I will be keeping 'one' library.

3) I will be counting my bed, chair and wardrobe on my list, but I will not be counting items such as 'fridge, toaster, cooker etc. Otherwise I would get to nearly 50 objects just by counting my cutlery, plates and kitchen appliances. I can assure you all, I do not have an addiction to buying kitchen equipment, and my cupboards are modestly filled with essentials. I am also not going to count items such as 'a screw driver, allen keys, tape measurer'. These will count as 'household items', needed for the times when I may need to change a fuse or measure something...

4) Some items will count in groups - for example, socks, pants, etc. This is mainly because it would be pretty unhygenic for me to live with limited amounts of underwear, especially as I live alone and could not fill a washing machine with only a weeks worth of clothes. I would therefore either have to walk around commando for the best part of a fortnight, or wash half-loads - both of which are harmful to the environment.

5) I have decided to keep one small 'memoribila box' in order to savour things that I have been given over the years by lovely friends and family, some of whom are no longer around. I assure you, none of these things will be items I myself have purchased, and I will be sorting through  and throwing away a great deal of the fairly large memoribila box I have currently.

6) Digital items such as Music will not count, as these are not possessions I can grasp (and many of which are bought for the benefit of the young people.)

7) Most people who buy me gifts will know that for this year, they are not allowed to buy me things. However, in case anyone can not resist this urge, I will allow myself 7 days from receiving the item before it will count towards my 100 things. In that time I will either need to give it away, give it back, or throw something else away in order to keep it.

8) Finally, I am allowed to buy new things. However, I always have to remain under the 100 thing total. If I am replacing something, I have to get rid of the original thing first before I get the new thing.

So, they are the rules. Now all I have to do is get down to 100 personal things before 1st August. Let the purging begin!