The term “saturation” always reminds me my high school chemistry teacher, who was a big lady and very good at giving definitions for those hard chemistry terms. One day in her class, she asked us “guys, do you have any experience of taking buses in Beijing” ? “Yes we do.” We got confused because we were not sure if buses have anything to do with today’s chemistry lecture. Then she said something I would never forget in my life. “…there are two doors in one bus, as you know. When there is one person gets on the bus from one door, there must be another one person to be squeezed out from the other door. That’s what happens in Beijing and that is what saturation is.” We laughed. Couldn’t help it indeed!!!

I have never forgotten her funny definition even if I am such a forgetful person, but I have to admit that her principle gets faded in my mind with the time passes by. Just take a look at the corner of the living room in the house, see the furniture piling there that need to be sold? Open the overloaded wardrobe, how many clothes of them are the ones I have recently put on? Then don’t miss the stuffed drawers, the shelves in the cabinet and the space underneath the bed, the table even the digital piano, have I ever tried to touch them to get anything in the past 3 months? This house is overloaded and I still keep bringing the new things in every day, every week and every month. It’s just like a constipated person. There are only incomings but no outcomings. Sick!!!!

Sometimes I feel frustrated, especially when I am doing the cleaning or when we are planning a move. I find it so hard to get everything packed into the boxes. They have been okay staying in where they are in this house. You don’t see them, you don’t even feel their existence, but they become problems and extremely redudant when you start to look at them or you want to do something about them.

I don’t know why I have been so greedy. The impulse of purchase drove me to buy things I can afford, but doesn’t tell me how to handle the used ones that I don’t need or like anymore. People get blind and full of desire for substances when they are wanting, and then they can’t wait to dispose the old stuff they don’t like or need any more. In terms of that, there will never be a situation of “Saturation” in this world because of human’s cupidity and continuing dissatisfaction with what they haven’t got. So where is another door? It is not open or actually we don’t have it at all.

If we don’t have a door-out, then the only choice left us is to block the door-in. Want to get a new bathmat? Okay fine, chuck the old one into the rubbish bin first. If you feel hard to give away the old stuff, then don’t get the new ones. Being attracted by the beautiful knickers or bras in shops? Forget it!! You won’t get them just because they are light and won’t occupy much room in your chest. Hang on to your old ones, either throwing them out or washing them a hundred times a week so there is a chance to make them more quickly to get worn out. It’s all about balance, about how to keep a healthy and circulating living style.

From now on, I will always keep this in my mind:
1) I am a substantially saturated person;
2) Try to live simpler as if I have no more space for any complexities.