I decided to do a different kind of post today. The reason I decided to write this post is because of the wacky idea my dad had to hang our old shoes on the tree in the garden (Don’t worry, we are NOT drug dealers, I repeat, we are NOT drug dealers!)*, and other than me posing next to the now, bleached out shoes, I thought I would make something of it! So what am I making of it, I hear you say? Well, I’m telling YOU to be grateful for those things that get taken around, thousands and thousands of steps.
When I was in Year 2 at school (Around the age of 7), I had to do an assembly presentation with my friend, and we chose the subject of shoes. I’m really annoyed I don’t have a video of it, but I’ll try my best to explain. We talked about Imelda Marcos who had over 3,000 pairs of shoes (Sadly destroyed due to floods!), which I believed was utterly REDONKULOUS, but now looking back I would love to have that many shoes! Imagine having a pair of shoes for every outfit!? No, Tolly, that’s being silly, the amount of shoes you have is enough. This is where the meaning of this post comes into play. Do we really need more than one pair of shoes?
First of all let’s think about what shoes really are: They’re pieces of fabric sewn together to protect our feet? Right? Or are they pieces of fabric sewn together to make our feet look pretty? Let’s roll with the first one. If this is right, how come over 3 MILLION children and 1.5 BILLION adults, still do not own shoes? Now let’s think of the second one. If shoes are meant to make our feet look pretty, how come those 1 billion, five hundred and three million people have ugly feet? It sounds ridiculous that, that amount of people are walking around with nothing on their feet. Some of those people walk a good few kilometers with no shoes just to get a sip of dirty water.
Now onto our own shoes – How many pairs do you own?: How many pairs do you actually wear? Personally, I own about…. 15 pairs? Not too many compared to some, but honestly I don’t wear half of them! At the moment I am usually wearing my Dr Martens, Flip Flops, or my Converse style trainers. Just 3 pairs?! That could leave 12 pairs to give to somebody who still doesn’t own a pair. There is a really clever way to do this actually! I blogged about this yonks ago, but I thought I would include it again. TOMS (The cute little canvas shoes) have a charity in which every pair of TOMS you buy, gives a pair of shoes to a child in need! So go buy a pair! You get a cute pair of shoes, and so does a child in need! Voila!
Image from TOMS
Last but not least, do you need them?: In my personal opinion, I would say yes, but in another way no. Naturally our feet could survive without shoes, because that’s what our ancestors used to do, it’s only modern times which have made us wear them. I reckon I could probably just about go round our local food shop without shoes, I may just have to have an extra foot clean! For somebody who works in an office, I reckon they could go without shoes, just let those bad boys air out under your desk! (ew) For somebody working in Fashion, I guess it would be quite hard to say goodbye to the little gems, but it would be possible. Although it would be odd at first, I think we would all get a long just fine!
My point is, we really should be more grateful for our shoes. It maybe an odd thing to be thankful for, but think about those billions of people who don’t have any? If shoes were to grow on trees we’d be laughing, so seeing as they don’t, the next time you want a pair of shoes, take a step back and realise that what you have is really all you need. (Unless their a bargain, then perhaps I’ll let you off!)
