Lesson from Toy Story 3

Everyone is talking about the movie Toy Story 3.  "It made me cry!"  "It's really good!"  It was tempting but we successfully avoided going to see it during the Fourth-of-July weekend.  We've had negative experiences with trying to go to the theater during holidays.  Yesterday was a lucky day - we finally went to see it.  So what did I think? 

The movie was good...it kept me engaged in spite of a headache.  The beginning of the story grabbed my attention and had shaken off my desire to give in to sleep.   My kids enjoyed it; they were laughing even in the car as they analyzed the things that pertained to 'Ken', the guy Barbie-doll.  'Lots-o' the pink strawberry-scented hugging bear was a surprising choice for a villain.  In spite of the all-familiar characters and their antics, the story was full of surprises. 

What is the moral of the story?  My children can look at the toy-characters and say that unconditional act of kindness is something that anyone can use.  Both Woody and Buzz demonstrated this in many ways.  Good judgment covers us from a lot of disaster.

When it comes to the human-characters, the lesson is very straight forward:  Let go of your old stuff to someone who needs them more than you. 

I am in the process of cleaning my closet and I can understand the feeling of parting with an old thing that served you and been with you all your life.  I have a sweater given to me by a friend who travelled with me to China. This was way before I got married.  I must have worn it only twice since then.  I still want to cling to it.  What's wrong with me?  I also have a blouse with a huge golden button on the front that I bought at Debenhams in England during my days in Reading.  It became one of my favorite shirts at that time but I haven't worn it since I had my first child.  With a hope that I might one day get rid of the pounds that came with my title as mother, this blouse remained in my wardrobe until now. They all must go now.  I don't need them.  Someone else, either through Goodwill or Alas Cargo, will benefit from my old stuff.

"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."

~ William Morris

Even today as my children and I spent a good portion of the afternoon helping Terry Stapleton to sort and pack her kitchen stuff for the move, the Toy Story lesson kept coming back to me.  The thought of being generous as to give and being ruthless as to get rid of thing was translated into reality as I watched Terry struggle to choose which items to keep and let go.  So I came home wanting to eliminate some of the "potentially-necessary-but-unnecessary" stuff in my kitchen.