We were constantly running out of jars to store stuff at home, so we decided to buy some more. We managed the whole of last year with about 3 medium sized jars, so we bought 3 more jars last week. A 100% increase would be more more than enough to serve our needs for the next year, right?
Wrong. Today, we are out of jars again!
I bought two bags of lemon from the supermarket this weekend. This single purchase was enough to occupy all three new jars. In the first jar, I extracted the juice from these lemons for a summer cooler. In the second jar, I pickled half of the lemon skin. In the third jar, I immersed the other half in vinegar for a household cleaning solution.
Now we went the whole of last year without missing any of those three bottles of yellow on our kitchen counter. But the mere presence of empty jars caused me to buy lemons in bulk and pickle the skin. We have promptly run out of storage space once again.
Learning to preserve empty space in your life is a hard-earned skill. The moment we have an empty house, we fill it with furniture. The moment we have a free afternoon, we are likely to fill it with mindless activity. Empty space simply disappears.
When life gave me lemons, I ran out of jars.
Observations 