If you found the genie in a bottle and the genie offered to provide you with any tool you could imagine, what would you ask for? I’d ask for a retrospectascope.
The genie would give me one of those strange looks and ask, “What the hell is a retrospectascope?” My retrospectascope would allow you to look back at any point in time and either put you on the right path to success or, in my case, stop me from making a fool of myself.
My mother moved from Norfolk to our house in Long Grove in 2009. At that time, I told her to sell most of her belongings and only pack the essentials as we had a full house and everything she could want. I was furious when the movers showed up with the entire contents of her house. I still have a substantial amount of her stuff and she died in 2014.
Flash forward to today. As I’m packing to move to our new, much smaller house in North Carolina, I realized that Renee and I have packed way too much. We started packing weeks ago and promised to take only the bare minimum. We failed!
It’s hard to let go of stuff! I’ve got stuff of my mom’s and my dad’s. I’ve got stuff from my childhood, my college years, Mexico and my Illinois life. I’ve thrown stuff out only to pull it out of the garbage later. How do you give away or throw out your stuff?
One thing is for sure. I owe my mom an apology. She couldn’t let her stuff go. Looking back through a retrospectascope armed with the knowledge I now have would have stopped me from being an ass.No one understands stuff better than George Carlin. If you’ve never heard his “Stuff” here’s a 5 minute version
