{"id":1201,"date":"2010-12-13T08:26:53","date_gmt":"2010-12-13T15:26:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.writerlyhaphazardry.net\/?p=1201"},"modified":"2010-12-13T08:26:53","modified_gmt":"2010-12-13T15:26:53","slug":"action-reverb10-day-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.writerlyhaphazardry.net\/?p=1201","title":{"rendered":"Action: #reverb10 Day 13"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s prompt<\/a>:\u00c2\u00a0 When it comes to aspirations, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not about ideas. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about making ideas happen. What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s your next step? (Author: Scott Belsky)<\/em><\/p>\n

My main action right now is Project Minimize. Today’s goal: Reduce the number of shoes in my closet by 1\/2.<\/p>\n

Here’s a peek at some of the shoes that have to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From Project Minimize<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

There’s nothing in particular wrong with these shoes. They’ve just been in the back of my closet where I couldn’t even see them to consider wearing them since the Clinton Administration. Some may have been there since the days of George Sr. If any date back to Reagan, I don’t want to admit it, but I won’t swear on anyone’s holy book that they don’t.<\/p>\n

They have to go. I need that closet space for the clutter I’m collecting now. It is, however, my aspiration to collect less. I hope one day to see patches of clear floor in my closet.<\/p>\n

I watched No Impact Man<\/a> and 11th Hour<\/a> this week.<\/p>\n

I don’t think I can ever become No Impact Woman, mainly because I’m going to keep using toilet paper until the last tree is down. There’s a lot of space for making a difference between doing everything and doing nothing, though.<\/p>\n

I’m very concerned about out-of-control consumerism. My own as well as the collective hyper-consumerism of the world we live in. It is dangerously bad for the environment and dangerously bad for the economy. I like to refer to shopping as stimulating the economy, but maxed out credit doesn’t help anyone’s economy. We got away with it for a time, but then we hit the inevitable crash.<\/p>\n

Hyper-consumerism has also created the Banana Republic economy in which most of the wealth is controlled by only a few while abject poverty becomes the order of the day for the masses. We might as well be back on the feudal estates. We are the serfs.<\/p>\n

Quite simply, I don’t want to give my money to the wealthiest people by buying a bunch of stuff I don’t need. I want to be more deliberate about my spending. I want to channel what I can to local farmers and local artisans. I want to buy from small businesses.<\/p>\n

But mostly, I want to prioritize my life by spending less altogether. I’ve felt pressured by the recession. I haven’t had any raises to help me keep up with the cost of living. I’ve taken on extra work instead. I’ve taken on more than I can handle, and I feel like that in itself is an exercise in futility.<\/p>\n

If I just spent less, I could work less.<\/p>\n

I want to spend less so as to do more of other things: give more, save more, pay down more debt, devote more time to experiences as opposed to things.<\/p>\n

So if I don’t plan to buy any new shoes, why am I getting rid of half the shoes I already own? Because I don’t want to be surrounded by so much stuff or by the idea that I need so much stuff. I want to simplify my surroundings and simplify my preferences.<\/p>\n

To achieve that, I have set a few goals for 2011:<\/p>\n

1. Drop expenses I don’t need. HBO has to go.
\n2. Pay off credit cards. I don’t owe extreme amounts, but I don’t want to owe anything. Interest sucks.
\n3. Get rid of half the stuff in my house.
\n4. Don’t drag a bunch of new stuff in.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Once I’ve put my house and my finances on a diet, and once I’ve shifted my consumer mindset into something simpler and more manageable, maybe then I will free myself up to work less and devote more time to…well…life. Maybe I’ll also reduce my impact on the environment along the way.<\/p>\n

We’ll see. I intended for this to be more of a Social Activism post, and it turned out to be more of an All About Me post. That’s not really what I want, but you have to secure your own oxygen mask before you are able help others with theirs. Anyone who travels through this world knows that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s prompt:\u00c2\u00a0 When it comes to aspirations, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not about<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflecting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.writerlyhaphazardry.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.writerlyhaphazardry.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.writerlyhaphazardry.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.writerlyhaphazardry.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.writerlyhaphazardry.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.writerlyhaphazardry.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.writerlyhaphazardry.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.writerlyhaphazardry.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.writerlyhaphazardry.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}