Saturday, March 06, 2004
Report: Day 3
Day three in the bag. I still feel like me, you know? Is it working yet? I can't really tell. My shoelaces remain triple tied, but I'm still looking for an impact on other levels and I've not yet found any.
Yesterday's task, however, tested me to my materialistic limits. Oh, what greater task than to throw something I like away? What greater task? I mean, if I like it then I obviously want to keep it and use it and have it for all of time, right?
So I solicited a few opinions about what I might throw away. Nearly everyone said I should throw away food. "You know, if you like yougart and you have yougarts in your icebox then you could throw away a yougart. Or maybe eggs. Eggs are inexpensive and you can get them all year round." Others offered a variation on this theme. Some suggested I wait until I was hungry and then throw away something I really liked to eat. Others said I should throw away portions of servigs, like a single cashew or the like.
I have to say that my first inclination was to throw away food as well. It was my very first thought. "I have some tomatoes that are a little over ripe. I'll just pitch them." But I don't think throwing away something like food is really that life changing. I mean, we throw away food all the time. When we can't clean our plates for example. Or when we decide to diet and clean out the cupcakes in the cupboard. Or when we don't get to that left over pot roast in time. So I discarded this notion entirely. What ever I threw away, I decided, would have to be inedible.
But which of my things would I throw away? Maybe, I thought, I should give something away instead, you know? Like choose a favorite article of clothing and donate it to the Salvation Army. Or choose a favorite book from my shelves and give it to a friend. I mean, throwing something away, especially something that I like, seemed like such an awful waste.
And that's when it finally hit me. Throwing something away is very closely related to wasting it. So I logged on and made a $5 contribution to the Al Sharpton Presidential Campaign.
That's right. I just threw my money away. And I do like money, now. I really do. Ya'll know that. But I just threw it away for ever and ever, never to see any return on that investment.
And I feel pretty good about it, you know? Oh, sure I could have gotten my car washed or something with that five bucks. I could have fed a Starving African for like three weeks or bought myself a latte at Starbucks. But I didn't. I wasted it. And now there's nothing I can do about it.
Today I've got to make my travel plans for the rest of my life using a map of the world, a color scheme, and a box of crayons. Thank God it's a Saturday, because this could take some time.
Yesterday's task, however, tested me to my materialistic limits. Oh, what greater task than to throw something I like away? What greater task? I mean, if I like it then I obviously want to keep it and use it and have it for all of time, right?
So I solicited a few opinions about what I might throw away. Nearly everyone said I should throw away food. "You know, if you like yougart and you have yougarts in your icebox then you could throw away a yougart. Or maybe eggs. Eggs are inexpensive and you can get them all year round." Others offered a variation on this theme. Some suggested I wait until I was hungry and then throw away something I really liked to eat. Others said I should throw away portions of servigs, like a single cashew or the like.
I have to say that my first inclination was to throw away food as well. It was my very first thought. "I have some tomatoes that are a little over ripe. I'll just pitch them." But I don't think throwing away something like food is really that life changing. I mean, we throw away food all the time. When we can't clean our plates for example. Or when we decide to diet and clean out the cupcakes in the cupboard. Or when we don't get to that left over pot roast in time. So I discarded this notion entirely. What ever I threw away, I decided, would have to be inedible.
But which of my things would I throw away? Maybe, I thought, I should give something away instead, you know? Like choose a favorite article of clothing and donate it to the Salvation Army. Or choose a favorite book from my shelves and give it to a friend. I mean, throwing something away, especially something that I like, seemed like such an awful waste.
And that's when it finally hit me. Throwing something away is very closely related to wasting it. So I logged on and made a $5 contribution to the Al Sharpton Presidential Campaign.
That's right. I just threw my money away. And I do like money, now. I really do. Ya'll know that. But I just threw it away for ever and ever, never to see any return on that investment.
And I feel pretty good about it, you know? Oh, sure I could have gotten my car washed or something with that five bucks. I could have fed a Starving African for like three weeks or bought myself a latte at Starbucks. But I didn't. I wasted it. And now there's nothing I can do about it.
Today I've got to make my travel plans for the rest of my life using a map of the world, a color scheme, and a box of crayons. Thank God it's a Saturday, because this could take some time.
