repositioning the stuff

Matt, the son of my across-the-street-neighbor Joe, came over this morning and used his good muscles to transport various boxes that had belonged to my mother before she died out to the zendo, now turned into a storage shed. Matt had the energy. I had some money. The boxes had sat in a corner, waiting to be attended to, for a couple of years. Now they are out of sight. I'm sure there is something important within, but these days I haven't got much energy even for the 'important.'

Perhaps future generations will, at birth, receive a tack-on bit of DNA that reads, "if you're going to add something to the household, find something to discard." Ours is a small house with little closet space and much of what openness there is has stuff in it. Just the stuff that comes with three kids, school projects, and a passel of half-hunches that "we ought to save that."

Stuff. Once I was quite a stuff guy. Now I'm not so much any more. But things seem to work out more or less: The stuff that was once a zendo is now a perfectly good storage space. My wife and kids are pack rats, a bit. Their first inclination when something breaks is to get another one. My first question is, can I fix it and if so, is it worth fixing?

Different strokes for different folks.