A Simplistic Life or Over Runned by Stuff?

I have been thinking a lot lately (yeah yeah I know scary huh?) about how much stuff Richard and I own and how much people own in general. I gotta say, Why do we have so much crap? Think about it, look around you at all the stuff that surrounds you. How much of this stuff do we actually need to survive? Do we really need T.V.'s, computers, cell phones, Ipods, video game systems, web cams, GPS and any other electronic devices we might have? Then on top of all that stuff there are the accessories to it all, if you have a game system, you have games, controllers, power cables, for the more challenging games you have a walk through.Heaven help you if you have more then one system like we do. You own a T.V. or two or three, you have DVD players, DVDs and that controller, and most likely a DVD play for each T.V. you own, I know we do, we have a DVD player in the bedroom and a Blue Ray player in the living room. With the computer you have all the stuff that goes with it, plus cables to plug in your ipod to it and any time you upgrade your Ipod you get yet another cable to connect to the computer with. Same with your digital camera, how many of those do you have? My mom has at least 4 that I can think of.  Then there are pictures and picture albums, decorations, cleaning supplies, Holiday decorations. On top of all this stuff you have to have a place to put it all, so now you have storage boxes and shelves. I wont even go into the things we all have that just sit around and collect dust cause we never use them but don't want to throw them away because we have some form of attachment to them or we are just lazy or better yet as I have caught myself saying on more then one occasion "I might need it one of these days".

I have an entire closet at my moms house full of stuff that I haven't used in 8 years, or longer and I can't seem to convince myself to go through it again and see what I truly need out of there and what is just there due to "I might need this one of these days". Now I know there are stuffed animals that I will hold on to cause they are from my child hood and from my father, but a lot of that stuff I could probably do with out. I mean I haven't used it in 8 years I obviously don't miss it. A couple of times a year I go through this phase of wanting to get rid of stuff I don't use, that's just taking up space. I don't want to have so much junk laying around.

I guess sometimes I yearn for a simplistic life, where I don't need a T.V. or computer, or any electronic device. I think about how nice it would be to just to be. I already hardly watch T.V., we haven't had cable or direct T.V. or satellite. It only gets turned on when Richard is home for the most part. But at the same time I realize if I didn't have all this stuff how bored I would be. On the bright side though I do find myself asking "do I really truly 100% need this item, or can I live with out it?" when I go shopping and see a nifty new device. So I guess in my own way I am leading a more simplistic life then I have in the past, but in reality I am just like everyone else and will always have the yearning to have the newest device depending on what it is I will give in sooner or later. Usually when the price goes down to a more reasonable one. I am after all only human.