Saving for what?

I have this habit of saving things for future use, even if I don't know what that use will be, or when. I don't know where it started but over the years I have saved clothes I don't wear, random equipment, and even food. I saved things that were perfectly fine by all stardards even though I didn't really have a use for them. I saved them because someday I might use them... Ever since college ended I have slightly been getting better and better about this. It started when I left my college dwelling and moved to Montana. I gave away almost everything that I couldn't take with me. I put somethings in storage, and took somethings to my parents house. (By the way, some of those things are still there.) It felt great to simplify my life, but there was a lot more to come. I learned a great lesson one year when my brother was in Afghanistan. When I was in college I worked at a golf course, which was one of my favorite jobs ever. I was always out on the course working and as a result I found lots and lots of golf balls. I saved them for my future use. I seperated them by value. The really expensive ones went into one box, and all the others went into the other. I never used the expensive ones, because I decided I wasn't a good enough golfer yet. I would save them until I could play well enough to really appreciate expensive balls. Years went by and the box went untouched, even though I personally valued them. They ended up on a shelf in my parents garage, waiting for the time down the road when I was a low handicap golfer. Or so I thought. I got a letter from my brother telling me about how he would hit golf balls off of a rocky cliff overlooking farm fields to pass his free time. He thanked me in the letter for the box of gof balls mom had sent him. I could sense some humor in his words. I thought mom had sent him the box of cheap balls??? Wrong. The expensive balls I had been saving were being flinged all over Afghanistan, and the balls I could care less about were waiting for me in my parents garage. I pictured my brother devilishly grinning as he whacked all the Callaway's and Pro-V's into oblivian. At the time I thought my mother sent the wrong box. I thought she should have sent the cheap balls instead. The more I thought about it the more I had to laugh at myself. I was saving them for something important, and I almost missed it. Looking back I could not think of a better reason for saving those golf balls, and I am so happy my mom sent the box of good ones to my brother instead. Since then I hardly hang on to anything I don't use. If I don't need it, I want some one to use it. Call it simplifying, but it feels great to know someone is going to appreciate and actually use what I didn't have an immediate need for. I am in the process of filling up a bin for The Salvation Army, and in it I have even put in some of my good cowboy boots. Even though they are important to me, they are just possesions. Its time for someone to put them to use again, afterall thats what I've been saving them for.