Love hearing from audience members who are putting the ideas into practice! Julie G. writes:
“Thank you so much for the stuffication workshop on Tuesday 2/1 at the Beaverton Library. It was both helpful and inspiring.
I very much appreciated your brief history on how we got here. The immediate post-war period in the U.S. was unique in that two major transformations converged: the advent of 1) credit cards and 2) mass advertising. Together these two innoventions ushered in an era of unprecedented economic growth fueled by consumer spending on products that people didn’t need and couldn’t afford.
Since the economic meltdown of 2008-2009, I have been amazed at government efforts to “increase consumer spending” in hopes that we can somehow get back to the halcion days of unregulated credit and out-of-control consumer spending. It was such a breath of fresh air to hear you give voice to the obvious: we will never get back there, and that is a good thing. The future beckons us to spend less on “stuff” that we don’t need and can’t afford.
I came home from your workshop and made a plan for small incremental changes which I began today. First books, then clothes, then kitchenstuff. This project of cleaning out which seemed so overwhelming to me before your workshop, now feels very doable. Thank you!”