The Story of Stuff Video – The Most Important 20 Minutes You Can Spend Today

If you haven’t already seen the “Story of Stuff” video by Annie Leonard, today’s your day. Gather your family and friends (or send them the link) and watch it NOW. It’s so important.

Mostly, we are all well aware of our over-consumption and the consequential impact on the environment, but this video does an outstanding job at distilling the alarming information into digestible nuggets… even provides us with usable soundbites to easily relay the information to others.

You may watch a teaser below (only a minute long) and you will want to click on this link to get access to the full 20 minute feature. You’ll be shocked and astounded and hopefully motivated too.

My biggest takeaway from this? We all need to learn how to live with less stuff and be happy doing so. In fashion? Forget about trends. Buy quality classic styles (whatever is YOUR classic) that will last you for a long time. Just like the French women have always done, buying very few but glorious additions to their wardrobes as the seasons change. In our homes? Let’s start buying things that last. Enough with the disposable furniture and appliances. Cars? I don’t think that we need to change cars every two years. Let’s tell that to our egos how foolish that is.

Some good news? In a way, I’m thinking that our mortgage and financial crisis is happening at a very convenient time where, because we won’t have a choice but to cut back on consumption, we will likely wholly embrace new thrifty and frugal values and live with them with honor. Just like our great grandparents and grandparents did. Yes, honor, not foolishness nor submission to the influence and pressure of Big Public Corp that needs to bring its numbers up every quarter.