I was on my computer the other day — just as I am every day of my life — and I tried to save a project I was working on, but it would not save.
I couldn’t understand what was happening. I kept getting a failure notice that the file would not save. Then, I realized my USB flash drive (some people call this a jump drive, thumb drive, data stick, etc.) was full. I finally had run out of storage space for all of my files.
I save all my files to a flash drive because I am always worried about my computer crashing and losing everything I have. A flash drive is like a suitcase for your computer files, only smaller. It’s about the size of your thumb — maybe that’s why they call it a thumb drive. Anyway, you can store all kinds of information on it and then stick it in your pocket and carry it with you. Some people even have a flash drive attached to their key chain for quick access to files. I don’t have one of those.
Somehow, my flash drive became full. Lately, I had been saving all kinds of information on it and didn’t realize I was running out of space.
There are a couple things one can do when running out of space on a flash drive. You can get a bigger one — just like my wife’s suitcase, which is much bigger than mine — or you can empty out some stuff to make more room. Basically, that means deleting files to make room for new ones. So I began deleting some old files and, lo and behold, I now have more space in order to save my new files.
You know, life is much like a flash drive. We gather and store all kinds of things and items throughout our life, until one day, we hit that magic moment when we have no more space to store anything else. My garage is getting close to that critical-mass mark when I either will have to start throwing things out or get a stronger door that will close under all that pressure.
I guess I always could rent additional storage space. The Self Storage Association reports that 1 in 10 U.S. households now rent a self-storage unit. Also, of the 59,500 storage facilities that existed worldwide at the end of 2013, more than 48,500 were in the United States.
Boy, we sure do like our stuff. OCRegister.com claims that today’s market for self-storage is $22 billion annually. Holy cow, that’s a lot of stuff we are storing. And the market for self-storage is growing, not shrinking. What is more amazing is that this is occurring at the same time that the size of the average American house is increasing, and the size of the average American family is decreasing.
The truth is, it is hard to let go of things. I’m trying to do better, but it is killing me just to think about getting rid of my plaid leisure suit.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just hit the delete button and make all your old stuff disappear? Better yet, consider the many churches and charities that will take these items off your hands in order to help others. That’s a win-win proposition for everyone.
DeLong is the executive director of The Suites at Station Exchange. Call him at 912-531-7867 or go to www.thesuitesatstationexchange.com.