100 Thing Challenge

This guy named Dave has decided to undertake the 100 Thing Challenge. His idea is to pare down his personal belongings to 100 things before November 12, 2008, & live with only those 100 things until November 12, 2009.

It's a noble idea, but his methods seem contradictory.

He has lots of stipulations for his challenge. First, he is only planning to live with 100 things for a year, after which he will go back to having all those things that he supposedly got rid of. Also, he's not counting the things that he shares with his family, like the car, the furniture, the kitchen stuff, etc, because the family is not participating in the challenge. He's counting all of his socks & underwear as one thing. & he's leaving his book collection, his wood working tools, his boxes of memorabilia, & his train set out of the count. It seems like the only things left to count would be clothing & junk. Not too much of a challenge if you ask me.

Maybe 100 things is just too difficult to achieve in this culture. I know there are people who live with less in the world; Peter Menzel's book Material World shows us several families who do. But I wonder if I could reduce my possessions to a true 100 things, including the car & every pair of socks (or should I count each sock individually?). I would like to try, but I'm not sure if I could accomplish it. Perhaps it can just be a goal to continually strive towards.

So, as a complement to Dave's 100 Thing Challenge, I would like to offer forth the Reverse 100 Thing Challenge. Instead of trying to live with only 100 things, I challenge everyone to get rid of 100 things.

Can you find 100 things to remove from your life?