The other day a friend knocked on my door asking if I had a stapler. I immediately grabbed a mini teal one from my desk drawer. Upon handing it to them, I realized how infrequently I use the stapler myself. I have had the stapler since my 7th birthday and have never needed to refill it with staples. I am not sure how many staples came in it, but 11 years is certainly a long time to have something and not need to refill or replace it. I find it amusing that besides this time, I have no recollection of when I used it last, yet I still felt the urge to bring it here. One product that I use quite frequently and have been shared with others is scissors. Reflecting on my feelings during that time in comparison to the time of sharing the stapler is interesting. When the scissors were in the possession of another person, my anxiety surrounding the object rose. Even though I trusted the person and knew they would only have them for a short time, it was a drastic difference in how I felt about the situation in comparison to someone having my stapler. Another aspect that is interesting to examine within these circumstances is that the person who used the stapler had put too much paper in it, and it ended up getting stuck for 10 minutes, and it took 4 people to resolve the issue. However, even with this instance, I felt less anxious over that happening, than I did from just knowing that my scissors were not in my room, even with me having no need to be using them anytime soon. Therefore, this has helped me understand that trust in material exchange goes both ways. Trust is needed to believe and seek someone else who has the thing you need, and trust and belief in yourself to serve others’ needs even in small material ways. Recognizing this can help people work towards communal sharing of products and reduce the production and ownership of goods that one does not need regularly. In Monday’s class, we discussed the short life span of a hammer being used and yet the common ownership of one. Based on the obvious fact that everyone is a different person, some people’s most commonly used objects are maybe not the same as the people around them. I do think that is an incredibly beautiful thing and is a great way to encourage sharing of resources. However, the desire to possess things is very common in the U.S. I imagine this stems from this country’s colonial practices centering on the taking of resources and lands from Indigenous people. These ideas have also formed American Dream ideas of success such as owning a house to raise a family being considered a worthy milestone. Breaking down and unpacking these concepts can help us work towards a world of having innate value through one’s personhood rather than value being based on our possessions. Overall, this week’s readings have helped me unpack my relationship to my things, form a desire to live in a circular economy, and therefore consider how my internalized ideas of possessing things effects my personal steps needed to help share ideas of a circular economy.