The Goal 2012 - Rebirth of a Ballpoint Pen

In 2005, I learned to eat M&M's slowly. In 2010 I finished an entire tube of chapstick one year. In 2012, I am attempting to accomplish something equally as challenging.

I, Phil Mondy, intend to use an entire ink pen until is completely void of ink and no longer writes. I intend to do this by the end of the calendar year 2012. Furthermore I intend REFILL that ink pen with a new cartridge of ink, giving that shell of a pen a second life!

It was early in 2011 when this idea first came to me. I received a set of pens from an online deal site by the name of woot.com. The box of pens came with all of the necessary components I would need for this accomplishment, refills for every pen in the box.

'Absurd!' I thought to myself, having rarely heard of a person owning a pen long enough to empty it's contents completely. Even in all of such cases I'd heard of, the pens were simply disposed of. On the other hand, what was I to do with refills that came with my pens? Kids are starving in Africa! I decided I would put the refills in the drawer in the laundry room for further consideration.

Time passed, and the thought occurred again. Could it be possible?  Probably not, but I started to believe the impossible could happen.

Now here I am, against all odds. I'm going to do it. I will refill a pen in 2012, and give it the gift of life again. There's no turning back now.

Simplifying The Basement Part 2

"There is some perfectly good junk here." I said. "We can't just throw away perfectly good junk, kids have AIDS in Africa."

So naturally, out of my concern for Africa, we thought of Goodwill. They have a drive through drop off. It's so easy.

It's easier than selling for sure, but still more complicated than throwing it all away. Complicated is bad. Complicated is very bad. Like the devil. No, the Anti-Christ. The Anti-Simple.

Simple is the goal, the greater good, the messiah which will rescue us into 2012.

But I was weak. I should have stared my conscience in the face and thrown it all away; forgetting Africa and Goodwill, but I chose the option which made things more... I can barely even say it I'm so ashamed... complicated.

We made two piles. One of trash, and one of donations. It was a setback, but we did it. Then, we pressed on.

After many, many  mind-numbingly, word-jumblingly, proof-readingly difficult hours in the basement, we simplified the basement. Nine plastic tubs, a shelving unit, two fridges, a treadmill, and two people survived to tell the tale.

It felt good. We were still bested by consumerism at times, but I believe that we won the battle. We faced the fear. We stared consumerism and the face and said, "Simplicity is better than having more stuff, you ridiculous, consumerist dragon!"

One small step for simplicity, one giant leap for quality of life.

Simplifying The Basement Part 1

Nobody likes to think about organizing basements or garages or attics. They are a mind trap waiting to suck the energy out of us. Cleaning the basement is worse than standing in line, worse than getting a speeding ticket, possibly even worse than an office Christmas party. It's like voluntarily being banished to the dungeon. The dungeon is lit by a couple of small windows, and has a supernatural power to inflict guilt until it is clean and organized.

Did I mention the dragon?  The one that slings cardboard boxes filled with useless things constantly? Difficult to believe unless you see it with your own eyes, but that's what we had to face when we descended into our basement last week.

How hard was it, you ask? How hard was it to go into the basement and answer this simple question,  "Do you want to keep this?" I don't want to exaggerate here. It was mind-numbingly difficult, word-jumblingly difficult, proof-readingly difficult. It was hard. 

It was hard to answer a simple question 1,000 times in a row, no matter how simple the question was. It was even harder to answer the follow up questions.

Let's say the answer was yes. "Where should we put it?" Was the follow up question.

Well if we knew where to put it, it wouldn't be in the basement. So we had to ask, "How long has it been since we used it?"

Again, it's probably been a long time cause it's in the basement. So we ask the original question again with emphasis. "Do you really want to keep this?" And the cycle continues.

If the answer was no, we don't want to keep said thing, the follow up question was, "Can we sell it?" This was a huge rabbit trail. Selling things takes effort and it has nothing to do with cleaning, organizing, and simplifying which is what we were trying to do. We gave up finally and made a blanket rule. No selling anything.

That felt good. We made a rash blanket rule to help us with our simplifying. That's what I needed. A big fat dramatic rule to keep us on task.

And that's when my conscience kicked in.

(More tomorrow)