A few years ago, my parents began the process of “downsizing”. They went through boxes of possessions accumulated over the years, giving away some things, tossing out others. Textbooks from their college days and business books, long outdated, were some of the first to go from a library of several hundred volumes. Still the books piled up as they bought new releases and the other members of the family and I gave each of them some new volumes we had found or, perhaps even better, some old treasure we had unearthed at a used book store that we knew would be of interest to them. Then there were the DVDs and the CDs that began to accumulate after they had given their old turntable and tape player away but still enjoyed music and watching films or listening to audiobooks. For all they gave away, the balance was still tilted heavily on the side of “have”.
