I cannot recall exactly which cartoon, or which show, but when I was growing up, I remember an image of a man in a doorway, with a pipe in his mouth. He lifts up his shoe and strikes a match against the bottom, thereby lighting the match and thus his pipe. Being the troublemaker I was growing up (and now, I suppose still), I always tried to do that with matches. I tried to light them on the bottom of my shoe, or on random surfaces, as I had seen on television here and there.
When I took up cigarettes in college and the years following, before I quit, I occasionally tried to light my match against things. It never worked as I had seen it on television. Then finally one day, I discovered “strike anywhere matches” and my childhood fantasy was actualized. In my excitement, I purchased 10 boxes of these magical incendiary sticks. And as you can imagine, I walked around lighting them on the bottoms of my shoes, on table surfaces, on doorways, and anywhere else I could think of.
I’m the type of person that does not easily grow bored. I find fascination in everything around me, from leaves blowing in the wind to the way the railing on a stoop is built. Even the same leaf changes from day to day. The same goes for these matches, which still carry the same magic they did for me as a child. Quite honestly, however, I no longer smoke and have no need for an abundance of matches. In fact, I just gave away a collection of hundreds matchboxes from Korea on Day 326. I’ve kept these strike anywhere matches out of conservation but also out of preservation of my childlike allure to the man in the doorway striking a match off the soles of his shoe.
On Day 346 of my 365 Release practice for non-attachment, letting go and change, I am reminding myself that it is I who attaches meaning to every object around me. And so too can I create every reason to let go.
Also, for those who have been asking how they can continue to be a part of my journey even after this project, you can subscribe to my monthly email newsletter here, where I share life lessons, contemplations of awesomeness and updates on projects such as this 365 Release and much more.
[I created the 365 Release Project to practice non-attachment, letting go and change by giving away 1 thing a day for 1 year. The background, vision and guidelines to the 365 RELEASE project are here. The running list of everything I have released is here.]