Think about this for a moment: what are some of your irreplaceable possessions? When did this world become so material? We set aside our innermost desires so that we may simply “have”. If you sat down today to compose a list of what you REALLY want to do in life, what would it be? Are your material collections helping you get there?

Join me in my newly found, minimalist prospective on life this year. In order to “have” more opportunities than the average person, then we must sacrifice other opportunities to add to our material collections. What exactly is a material collection? Look around you. These are your “things” , your possessions, that you have somehow gathered throughout the days that you have existed on this planet. Now reach into that mental file-cabinet. Rummage through the storage of your mind; play a vivid slideshow of still-shots and mental recordings of the most important things that you’ve accomplished, the most important people you’ve met, the most eye-opening places you’ve visited.

My slideshow would be a sort of extremely, overly, chromatic set of pictures speeding by to the sound of an old movie projector clicking, accompanied by some combination of the classical song: Cannon in D mixed with some hybrid version of that awesome guitar solo from Bostons More Than A Feeling. It would start out with the happy memories that I had during my first four years of life, playing dress up in my mom’s 80s work attire. Then move to the amazement that I felt when I became a big sister to the two sweetest twin stinkers in the world. A video of us playing on the slip-n-slide in the middle of nowhere, San Saba,Texas. Accompanying my dad to the local Dairy Queen to get drippy dipcones in his 2-seater Toyota truck that did not have air conditioning. It progresses to moving away, to finding independence, to making decisions on my own. The show digresses at sitting on the floor of my new house in my wedding dress with two of my childhood best friends . . . then laughing with my mate on the back of a water-bus in the moist, chilly, winter air of the turquoise Adriatic Sea. The real ends with my thoughts of the old Venetians sailing off into the distance.

What does yours look like? These are your highlights. Let us resolve to add to the highlights and deduct from the possessions that we actually over value. Take a step away from society to think about what you really value. Do your “things”, your collections, your memories, mirror what you value? Or do you value your things?