Thinking Outside the Box

While I was in college at Weber State, I had a professor whose name I can no longer recall. In his class I learned some of the most valuable lessons of my entire college experience.  Very few of them actually came from his lectures.  They came from his example - from the life he led.  He was always clean and neat, but his wardrobe only consisted of two changes of clothes.  One day he confessed to us that everything he owns can fit into one cardboard box with the exception of his bicycle.  He was renting an apartment, but it was empty.  He even slept on the floor.  He had one pan in which to cook his food and just ate right from the pan.  He didn’t live this way because of a lack of money.  He made a good income.  He just chose it.  I believe he was saving it.  He had ambitions to do humanitarian work in a far-off struggling nation - which one, I again can’t recall.  But the point is… this man with his one cardboard box of possessions had joy.  I don’t know much about what he deemed important enough to keep in that box, but I think often about what I would put in mine.  What physical possessions do you really need to bring you joy?  Think about it.