This morning I was heading home after a nice cup of coffee in my usual coffee shop. Right in front of my house I noticed a box of books and DVDs. The text on the box translates to “for free”. After a short glimpse I spotted a couple of nice books and movies, all in perfect condition:

• “Smoke” — Nice movie with Harvey Keitel.
• “The God Delusion” — One of my favourite books of late.
• “Mad Men” — Season 1&2 on DVD.
• “Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close” — Jonathan Safran Foer.
• A sealed Volkswagen toy bus which I am sure my 3 year old son will approve of.

This didn’t only make my day it also got me thinking: We need to better cultivate our sharing habits.

Just recently I went through my cupboards to get rid of books and other things I don’t care about anymore. I have to admit I was close to throwing some of it away. Luckily my wife reminded me of the local facebook “for free” group. It did not take long and a good percentage of the books had found new owners. Same for the huge plant that was getting too big for our living room and some shoes and handbags.

I have to say that to me the smile of a complete stranger is a much more rewarding experience than the few bucks I would have made selling the lot on Ebay. This is not to say that there is something wrong with making money by selling things on ebay or anywhere else for that matter. All I am trying to say is that if you are in a position like me, where you can afford all sorts of things then you should consider to just give some things away for free every now and then. It won’t hurt.

So the next time you clean out your cupboards you can …

1. Check Facebook. I bet there is some local “give away” group around your place as well.
2. Put everything in a box and place it in a busy corner of your town.

Lastly please keep in mind that something that you think of as trash might very well have value to others. We won’t and can’t change the fact that we are living in such a fast and restless society in which after one year your mobile phone isn’t hip anymore and your laptop just isn’t fast enough anymore. What we can try to change are our habits of what we do with the things we own once they’ve become obsolete to us because we’ve already read that book three times or didn’t enjoy that other movie enough to actually bother watching it a second time.

Now go fill that box.