Practicing Patience

I am working to quiet the voice inside of me that seems to always be saying, "I want, I want, I want." It is not easy. The house we have moved into is very different from our old one. The old one had a lot of built-ins - shelves, dressers, and two hutches. The new place does not have anything like that and as a result, we are still living out of a lot of boxes.

My human nature wants to find fixes for all of this immediately. We have found a couple of fixes. For example, we bought an amazing armoir at a local store called Itsy Bitsy, which is sadly closing (and also the reason we could afford it and felt the need to buy it quickly). But the "I want" list is pretty high and I am trying to hold off until garage sale season.

If you've ever spent any time at the story of stuff, you'll understand where I'm coming from. If you have never spent any time at the website or spent ~20 minutes watching the video, head over there. Hopefully it challenges you the way it challenged me. My heart embraces the idea of consuming less, wasting less, and being more resourceful with what I have; my head hasn't quite made it there yet.

Materialism and the desire for instant gratification are not easy characteristics to shake. But here's the thing ... instant gratification almost always lets me down. I'll see something and think I need it immediately, but when I act on that desire I am usually disappointed down the road. If I just wait, look, deliberate, and put my heart and my energy into it, I am usually so much happier with whatever object it is that I so badly "needed."

I guess I'll try to make that my mantra while I'm waiting for winter to melt away and garage sale season to show its face.