When the ever-popular question, "If your house were burning down and you could only save one thing other than your family, what would it be?" appears in conversation, peers always seem to be so sure of the correct answer.

Many students immediately answer that they would choose to save an old photo album, while others would take a favorite electronic. Maybe they would run back into the burning house to grab their laptop computer, video game system, iPod, or even a cell phone.

Yet, when it comes to cleaning the house and ridding it of unwanted or unnecessary items, the decisions no longer seem so simple. Everywhere you look, things are filled with sentimental value, and it comes time to decide which items are worth hanging on to.

While it seems a no-brainer that family pictures from years past should be kept for old times’ sake, where is the line drawn when it comes to memorabilia? How important are old birthday presents from younger siblings and favorite toys from childhood? Will elementary school teddy bears and third-grade soccer trophies really be missed?

These questions come up every year after the holidays, when my family tries to do a major Goodwill run with items that are no longer needed or that were replaced by new presents from that year. The process is always much harder than it seems, because items one member of the family is ready to get rid of may still be important to another. Getting everyone to agree that an object can be given away is close to impossible, so that by the end of the process, not much progress has been made.

This issue always raises the question of how we can become so attached to material goods. How can they carry such meaning in our lives? Is it good that we are able to remember the past through each of these items or bad that we are superficially attached to things with no real meaning?

We have all become much too materialistic, in my opinion. Things should not hold so much value, for they are mere things which, in the scheme of things, matter nothing at all. While memories are undoubtedly important, we should not need items to allow us to reminisce about both the good and the bad of the past. It’s time that we try to let go of these attachments.
That begs the question, what would I choose to save from a burning house? To me the answer is quite simple: Instead of risking my life for an old picture or fancy, expensive electronic, I would merely get out of the house alive. In other words, I would make certain that I had a more dependable way of storing memories at my disposal. Memories can’t burn down. Nothing is ever truly forgotten.