100 Days of Less

November
S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 20 211
222 233 244 255 266 277 288
299 3010          
December
S M T W T F S
    111 212 313 414 515
616 717 818 919 1020 1121 1222
1323 1424 1525 1626 1727 1828 1929
2030 2131 2232 2333 2434 2535 2636
2737 2838 2939 3040 3141    
January
S M T W T F S
          142 243
344 445 546 647 748 849 950
1051 1152 1253 1354 1455 1556 1657
1758 1859 1960 2061 2162 2263 2364
2465 2566 2667 2768 2869 2970 3071
3172            
February
S M T W T F S
  173 274 375 476 577 678
779 880 981 1082 1183 1284 1385
1486 1587 1688 1789 1890 1991 2092
2193 2294 2395 2496 2597 2698 2799
28100            

What the hell is going on here?

I have to get rid of all this shit.

My room, my car, the crevices of my shared apart­ment, and office desk are crawl­ing with pro­fusely inane shit. Some shit I don’t need, some I never use, and a lot of it I couldn’t pay some­body to take. It’s time to get rid of almost all of it. Down to the bone, a hand­ful of shit I find truly necessary.

For 100 straight days I’ll be rid­ding myself of at least one thing. Here I’ll be shar­ing what shit I’m ditch­ing and how. I might sell it, donate it to char­ity, or as I sus­pect will be the case more times than not, chuck it straight in the fuck­ing trash. I’ll def­i­nitely be curs­ing along the way. Sorry, Grandma.

Beyond that, I don’t know what I’m going to say about my stuff. I just don’t know. I’m try­ing to have some tol­er­ance for not know­ing how this will evolve. And holy crap will this effort be self-indulgent. My shit, my descrip­tions, and my asso­ci­ated thoughts? Me damnit! I’m just hop­ing at some point in this process I’ll acci­den­tally say some­thing gen­er­ally use­ful. I’ll try.

Published on November 16, 2009

12 Responses to “What the hell is going on here?”

  1. Rose says:
    November 16, 2009 at 10:49 am

    Awe­some. I like this idea. There’s some­thing really lib­er­at­ing about only hav­ing what you absolutely need. I felt that way often while hik­ing through south­ern & south Amer­ica hav­ing every­thing I needed in my pack.

    Reply
  2. patricia says:
    November 16, 2009 at 10:52 am

    i’m hop­ing that your daily booth pho­tos will not always look so scary-like. maybe happy. maybe with a bunny?

    Reply
  3. Mom says:
    November 16, 2009 at 11:39 am

    Well This cer­tainly lim­its my Christ­mas shop­ping! At least I know the one gift we got you will be “used”!!!!

    Reply
  4. Elle says:
    November 16, 2009 at 12:22 pm

    You’ll feel so much bet­ter! When we moved 3 years ago–holy shit, I threw out a ton of crap we hadn’t used in years. And it felt so freak­ing good. Ever since then, I get mad if peo­ple try to bring me clut­tery shit.

    Reply
  5. Allaboutcomics says:
    November 16, 2009 at 1:04 pm

    Idea: Ask if any­one wants it first. That way, some­thing poten­tially use­ful to some­one else can find a new owner and you cre­ate less waste!

    Reply
    • Caleb says:
      November 16, 2009 at 1:17 pm

      When I come across some­thing of decent value that I plan on trash­ing, I’ll def­i­nitely be post­ing to look for tak­ers. But it’ll have to be San Luis Obispo locals. I don’t see myself ship­ping my junk all over the states :P I’ll fig­ure out a for­mat that works.

      Reply
  6. Yosh says:
    November 16, 2009 at 5:44 pm

    Awe­some — and quite inspi­ra­tional! I hope to fol­low suit some­time soon. (In the mean­time, would you barter for bowls of steam­ing, deli­cious ramen?)

    Reply
  7. Hannah says:
    November 17, 2009 at 3:12 am

    I love not hav­ing very much shit. It weighs you down, leav­ing no room to be mobile, to up and leave on planes to ran­dom destinations(as I have been known to do a few times) and most of it becomes just plain useless.(Although, Mom is stor­ing some of that bag­gage)… I hope this “purifi­ca­tion” or “purg­ing” is every­thing and more for you, or at least helps in prepa­ra­tion for Spring clean­ing! Keep the books:)

    Reply
  8. Carrie says:
    November 20, 2009 at 12:18 pm

    Such a great thing. I’ve been purg­ing with the nest­ing that comes from expect­ing a new baby, but unfor­tu­nately a new baby means a lot of new shit also com­ing in. Tem­po­rary shit, at least, until they out­grow it. Stat­ing the obvi­ous here, but the Sal­va­tion Army depot is on the same street as our work. It would be easy to just drop it there at the end of each week if no one wants it and it’s actu­ally reusable.

    Reply
  9. 5x5 says:
    December 10, 2009 at 5:10 am

    The tough­est part you’ll have to over­come is deal­ing with the emo­tional clut­ter. Those things that you have no use for, but you keep around because some­one gave them to you or because they rep­re­sent an event in your life. If you think you might regret get­ting rid of some­thing, hold onto it for another 6 months. The purg­ing process best works repeated often.

    Reply

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