Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Storage Units: The Pathologies of Packing and Packing It On

It occurs to me that in this country we have parallel pathologies on the same trajectory to ill health. Have you noticed that nearly every community, no matter how small, has an extra “roll” around the edges of self-storage units? They are sprouting up everywhere. As a culture and a people we can’t seem to let go of “stuff”. We are on a path to collect stuff. We pass on our stuff to our kids and grandkids. We build whole new houses to put more and more stuff in. We forgo investing in businesses to help humanity in favor of the sure bet of building more storage units. We can’t seem to take responsibility for getting rid of the stuff that accumulates. Instead, we make excuses for the amount of stuff we have and stuff that stuff into bigger “clothes”. At the same time, as a people we are stuffing ourselves. We buy more and more low quality foods because we are lead to believe we can afford more of the cheap options. We eat more and more highly processed foods that put our bodies into storage mode. We trick our metabolism into wanting more and more calories so the body can create more storage units and we can buy bigger clothes. We then store the smaller sizes in the storage unit in the event that sometime in the future we will lose weight. The closer I look the more connected I believe these two pathologies are. 
Commonalities in development:
  • Abdication of personal responsibility in favor of the “expert opinion” or “just take a pill”.
  • The credit culture has eliminated anticipation and saving or working towards a desired goal. Waiting until you can actually afford something is seen as silly now. But because we can have whatever we want “now”, the thrill of the chase is eliminated, we grow weary of our new acquisition quickly, and fixate on the next “must have” item. Whether that is a Big Mac, a 65” TV or a Hummer.
  • Dedication to the TV as evidenced by the ever expanding channels and the ever dumbing down of content (we now watch “reality TV” to see what life is like in the outside world).
  • Reduction in interest in the physical environment and dissociation of humans from the environment to the point where children can’t recognize a vegetable or understand that chicken doesn’t just materialize in styrofoam and plastic wrap.
  • Diminution of actual bodily movement -- the most used appendage seems to have become the thumb and some people manage to move little else. 
  • Withdrawal from real human connection in favor of mass media entertainment and virtual worlds.
  • Growing inability to communicate effectively which goes hand in hand with the last item.
  • Oblivious disregard for personal impact on the environment. With no relationship there is no responsibility for one’s actions.
  • Definition of success as accumulation and chronic overabundance, and the denial of the growing problem of excess. Belief that endless expansion is sustainable, but uncontrolled growth is abnormal growth. In cellular terms, this is cancer.
  • Inability to find a starting point to make personal changes.
  • Lack of tools to create and sustain lasting change.
Re-Style Your Lifestyle:
It's Spring Cleaning Time! Cleaning up and cleaning out your physical storage units has positive impact on many levels not the least of which is you may discover you don't really need most of what you've been storing. You can make money selling it off, or take a tax break for donating your "stuff" to charity. Hey, you may even discover you don't need to be paying rent on that storage unit at all! Now, with that extra money available, you can actually afford to invest in yourSelf. Now you can more easily get to work on your cellular storage units. Now you can afford to join the gym, sign up for Boot Camp, take a nutrition class, and/or upgrade your grocery choices...

More on this as the metaphor manifests... Get A Grip. Get Organized. Get REAL.