You will need:
*Two trash cans.
*An iPhone and thick-framed glasses.
Directions:
1. Sit down and engage in a passionate mid-life crisis. Who are you? What have you actually done with your life? Who's going to remember you in a hundred years? Why do you make ends meet instead of making millions? Why do you watch football with the neighbors instead of the President? Why haven't you lived in Bosnia? Why do you eat peanut butter on your sandwiches instead of caviar? Never mind that you don't like caviar. Mid-life crises aren't about logic.
2. Decide that the only recourse to such a serious problem is to make a serious life change. No, not quitting your job to start your own business. That might fail. The last thing you need is more failing. You need to adopt a philosophy that will set you apart from the Joneses. Something fresh and unique. Something so innovative that it can only be described in French. Avant-garde! Coup de maître! À la carte! Minimalism!
3. Put on the glasses and try your best to look disgusted. Use your iPhone and the newest, most useless social networking tool you can find to tell the world, in vague and impassioned terms, that you're going to escape society now and begin your personal protest against civilian life under the Man.
4. Ready? Start with something small. That community events calendar from three years ago will do just fine. Pick it up, hold it high in the air, and express your newfound independence. "I don't need you!" Bursting into song is appropriate. Then walk over to a trash can and drop it in. Grit your teeth if necessary. You don't need it. You really, truly don't need it. Don't reach back in and pull it out. Just leave it there to molder in loneliness as you shine gloomy hate-eyes upon its back cover.
5. Don't you feel confident now? Go find other things to heap up in that sinful graveyard of vampire clutter. Free yourself of the plague. A toy snake that no one has played with in seven years? Perfect. A broken blender that you'll never get around to fixing? Please. A ceramic snowman that does nothing but decorate the top of your piano in December? Trash that little cretin. Feel the warmth and joy that begins to enter your life as you send hundreds of unimportant items cascading toward the garbage can.
6. When you've reached the end of knickknacks and old paperwork, start thinking outside the box. For example, there are four people in your family and you own a small couch and a medium couch. That's five cushions for four people. You glutton. Choose a least favorite cushion and give it a good kick for tricking you into thinking you needed it. Then give it a new home, right next to the empty spray bottle and the Sears catalogs you disposed of in step five. You're on a roll now. Keep it up. Your year's supply of Ramen noodles: gross. Four of the five light bulbs in your bathroom: so wasteful. All your non-ugly sweaters: gone. Souvenir T-shirt. Extra trombone. Dress casual shoes. Third tennis racket. The cold water spigot on your sink. The lowest note on your piano.
7. By now you should be developing a pretty robust mental complex. Just let it run its course. Throw away the rocking chair. Throw away all the television and computer cords. Throw away the rosebush. Throw away the clothes you're wearing. Throw away the cat.
8. I told you to get two trash cans. Did you get two trash cans? Good. Throw one of them away. You don't need both.
9. You need a finale. Walk out of your house carrying nothing but a small blanket and a loaf of bread. Never come back.
