Want!

I'm up way later than I should be this evening.  I will go to bed soon, I promise.

But until then, let's talk about wants.

I want some things.  I want an iPhone.  I want a Mac laptop.  I want a bicycle.  I also want a good quality digital SLR camera.

I don't need any of these things, but I want them.  My life won't be better if I do have them, but they will make me feel good.  I will enjoy them and the sense of achievement for having obtained them.

I've made the decision that I shall have all of those things by the end of 2009.  And once I've made up my mind, it will happen.  Dunno how, dunno when, but it will.

That's how my trip to the  US happened.  I made the decision that I was going to go to the US for my 35th birthday, and that I was going to spend the whole holiday season there, from my birthday in late October through Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year.  I just made up my mind.  And to this day I still don't know how I quite wangled it, but I did and it was the trip of a lifetime.

I am a firm believer that once you put your mind to something, you can make it happen.  Of course, it doesn't just happen miraculously on it's own, you have to have some input into the deal, but once you've made that decision the input is much easier.

I didn't always believe this.  Until a few years ago, I believed the whole of life was about fate and luck and that I had really bad luck.  But I had a shift in my thinking and started believing I could put my mind to anything I wanted and needed in life, and since I have, it's mostly worked for me.  Of course there have still been big challenges that cropped up, but I've found that when I've made the decision to deal with those challenges or make changes, then they tend to shift and change around me.

How do you feel about the things you want in life, be they material, emotional or general life goals?  Do you feel like you have any control over the likelihood of those wants being realised?  Do you believe it's up to fate?

Stuff and Nonsense

I was just reading this article about a 77 year old woman who was found dead in her house, crushed by the mountains of stuff she had purchased.  Apparently she was known for her addiction to shopping, and her best friend Roy, also 77, reckons she had over 300 scarves, let alone anything else she had in her house.  Poor Roy, I think perhaps he wanted her attention, not just for the shopping.

I'm kinda glad I'm de-cluttering my home at the moment.  I don't want to end up like this lady in 4o  years time.  I've only just started to realise how much STUFF I've got.  Nowhere near the lady in this article, but still far too much stuff I'm hanging on to, and what for?  Clothes that I don't wear, videos that I'm no longer able to watch because I don't have a VCR, all kinds of stuff I really don't need.

So I've been chucking out, sorting and donating all over the place.  I'm picking away at it slowly because if I try to do it all at once I'll lose interest.  Mostly I want to reclaim my spare room as a spare room, not a walk in storage unit.  And I want to shed a bunch of stuff that has no meaning to me any more, and display the stuff that DOES mean something to me.

Then there was this article about the 107 year old woman who is looking for a husband... is the universe trying to tell me something?