This Need Less, Give More experiment is chock full of catch-22s.
Like Dr. Dolittle's pushmi-pullyu, sometimes I can't decide which direction is right. For example, I want to cut back on my use of paper goods. Like my friend Dana, I want to stop using paper towels and napkins and use cloth instead. But that would mean I would have to buy cloth napkins. And so, I run headlong into the Need Less experiment. Under a strict interpretation of the rules I can't buy "things," but I can buy consumables. (I'm trying really hard not to mention soap.) Because paper towels and napkins are technically consumables, I could buy them. But I don't want to because the subcontext of this little experiment has to be creating less waste and using less of everything.
Do you think finger bowls are acceptable? Or should I just make all my guests use their sleeves? I guess I could start tearing up sheets and make my own napkins, but that just seems wrong.
Then yesterday I was at the grocery store actually buying groceries. As anyone who has looked in my fridge can attest, this is something I rarely do. But thinking I would turn over a new leaf (and because all the guys at work have me convinced that I should get prepared for inevitable Armageddon), I decided to put something other than Jägermeister and blue cheese dressing in my fridge.
Along comes the catch-22 again.
I only have two cloth grocery bags and I'm pretty sure all the groceries I need won't fit in just two. I don't want to use plastic bags, but under the rules of the experiment I can't buy any more cloth bags. Is there really anything wrong with just marching your cart full of loose groceries out to your car? Every place except Costco frowns on this practice for some reason. Maybe I should use pillow cases? Or hat boxes? I have plenty of those. But I think even the nice people at Harmon's would look at me funny if I walked in with a cart full of hat boxes and started filling them with bananas and tortillas and string cheese.
There has to be a way to stay true to the Need Less experiment and also use less of the consumable stuff too. Any ideas?
Showing posts with label need less give more experiment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label need less give more experiment. Show all posts
Monday, October 13, 2008
Sunday, August 17, 2008
I Need It
Just over a day into my little experiment and I'm already thinking about all the things I "need" and can't buy. I find myself making a list in my head of items I meant to get before this self-imposed deadline and just didn't really get around to buying.
I realized I've lived for years without a plastic cover thing that you leave in your microwave to use as a barrier for splattery dishes, but suddenly, now that I won't buy one, I desperately need it. How can anyone actually make due without that? And I think glumly about how much better my entire life would be if only I had thought of it before starting on this silly experiment. It's irrelevant that I rarely use my microwave and can use a plastic lid or a plate to the same effect.
And a fly swatter. How, I wonder, have I ever made it through life without that simple little gadget? It must be much better than a rolled up magazine or they wouldn't have them at every dollar store. And now I have to live my tired dreary little life without the benefit of something so basically important to civilized living.
Oh yes. The list goes on. I stomp around my house making an internal note of those things I can't live without, but will somehow have to for a year. I don't think I've realized how utterly lacking my life was before now.
On the up side to this little tirade, however, is the realization that I have plenty of things for the give-away pile. While searching my house for those things that I "need" I uncovered a lot of the unnecessary I had forgotten about. I tried nobly to convince myself that I had gotten rid of nearly every peripheral thing and the getting-rid-of part of this experiment was going to be the hardest. But that's not actually true. I still have plenty of things that can march their way out and by next year I won't even remember what they were. Today it's a pair of black shoes that look eerily similar to two other pairs of black shoes I have. Who knows why I have so many pairs of black shoes, but it's one less today.
One of my friends thought that a better way to do this experiment would be to put everything I own in the basement and only allow one thing a day to come back up. Anything left in the basement at the end of the year would then obviously be unnecessary. That's something I'll have to try another time. I just don't have the energy to haul everything I own to the basement. Plus, it would take a month just to get all the truly necessary stuff in my bathroom back.
But most of my friends just try to bail me out. They offer to give me some of their things to give away and they try to think of ways to get around any rules I may have. They are very creative in their ideas: things like giving them money and having them make the purchases or trading them for things I really want. They've all offered to give me junk that I could then give away and have great suggestions for things that would be less painful to give like pennies or food items. Some suggested before I start I buy a bunch of things I don't really need and then exchange them as the year wears on.
Who knows. I may resort to bending the rules enough to justify something, but for now I'll just keep pretending this is a hard thing to do and try to think less about stuff and more about life.
I realized I've lived for years without a plastic cover thing that you leave in your microwave to use as a barrier for splattery dishes, but suddenly, now that I won't buy one, I desperately need it. How can anyone actually make due without that? And I think glumly about how much better my entire life would be if only I had thought of it before starting on this silly experiment. It's irrelevant that I rarely use my microwave and can use a plastic lid or a plate to the same effect.
And a fly swatter. How, I wonder, have I ever made it through life without that simple little gadget? It must be much better than a rolled up magazine or they wouldn't have them at every dollar store. And now I have to live my tired dreary little life without the benefit of something so basically important to civilized living.
Oh yes. The list goes on. I stomp around my house making an internal note of those things I can't live without, but will somehow have to for a year. I don't think I've realized how utterly lacking my life was before now.
On the up side to this little tirade, however, is the realization that I have plenty of things for the give-away pile. While searching my house for those things that I "need" I uncovered a lot of the unnecessary I had forgotten about. I tried nobly to convince myself that I had gotten rid of nearly every peripheral thing and the getting-rid-of part of this experiment was going to be the hardest. But that's not actually true. I still have plenty of things that can march their way out and by next year I won't even remember what they were. Today it's a pair of black shoes that look eerily similar to two other pairs of black shoes I have. Who knows why I have so many pairs of black shoes, but it's one less today.
One of my friends thought that a better way to do this experiment would be to put everything I own in the basement and only allow one thing a day to come back up. Anything left in the basement at the end of the year would then obviously be unnecessary. That's something I'll have to try another time. I just don't have the energy to haul everything I own to the basement. Plus, it would take a month just to get all the truly necessary stuff in my bathroom back.
But most of my friends just try to bail me out. They offer to give me some of their things to give away and they try to think of ways to get around any rules I may have. They are very creative in their ideas: things like giving them money and having them make the purchases or trading them for things I really want. They've all offered to give me junk that I could then give away and have great suggestions for things that would be less painful to give like pennies or food items. Some suggested before I start I buy a bunch of things I don't really need and then exchange them as the year wears on.
Who knows. I may resort to bending the rules enough to justify something, but for now I'll just keep pretending this is a hard thing to do and try to think less about stuff and more about life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
