Possessed — The 1000 Things Projects

Possession is a two-way street...

We possess our things, but they also possess us; they demand our time, energy, and attention whether we're aware of it or not.

Our possessions are anchors, keeping us in place through our relationship with them -- which is fine so long as we want to be anchored there. But they can also be burdens, weighing us down and keeping us from moving on with our lives.

Being thoughtful about our possessions awakens their power, and getting rid of them thoughtfully requires additional time, energy, and attention. In my experience, though, the extra investment was well worth it.

Possession is mainly about grasping: that force which keeps us from letting go of a thing. Grasping is not always negative; sometimes it's good to treasure an object and know why it's valuable to hold onto it. To complete the 1000 things project, though, I needed to get better at both grasping and letting go...

The amount of time, energy, and attention I spent getting rid of this bassinet (#672) got out of hand, seemingly all out of proportion to its value to me and to the world.

My Parabody 220 machine is still weighing me down even though I haven't used it for a long time: difficult to sell, even harder to give or throw away. But it's on my punch list to get rid of finally...

Here are some of my share of ornaments from my grandparents' collection which I now possess after going through thousands of them with my sisters -- One. By. One. [add ornament story link later]

Mementos can be particularly possessive -- clingy, demanding, hard to part with. This one was not too hard, but taking a picture helps... (#2909, ski pass; trashed)