Life Reboot: Shedding unnecessary weight

Our family has been given an unexpected opportunity to do something that most of our peers do not get a chance to do. Most people our age (in their mid-30s) are getting settled. That means buying homes, having / raising children, obtaining pay levels that are just enough to keep one comfortably in place. Along with that might come some car purchases / upgrades, fancier furniture, a whole lot of kids stuff, new gadgets, hobby-related purchases. And there isn't really a good point for the train to stop rolling. Some might try their hand at spring cleaning and the occasional garage sale, but for the most part, stuff just keep piling up because it's easier to let it do so.

We've chosen to live a mobile life, and to travel the way we'd like to, we simply don't have the capacity to carry around all that extra weight. So instead of continuing down that path, we are taking the chance to completely reboot and shed all unnecessary weight.   This weekend we sold two black-brown Malm dressers (yes, those ubiquitous IKEA dressers), a sewing machines (used once) and a very hefty 88-key Yamaha digital piano. We also donated 4 trashbags worth of clothes to Goodwill, looking something like this:

Closet liposuction

Thus far, we've sold 35 items (ranging from a convertible to an Apple Time Capsule), and have roughly 10 more major items to go (two more cars, two beds, etc.). By the time we finish this clearance event, I estimate we'll have liquidated about $40k worth of stuff. And with our newfound lightness, we'll float our way down to Isla Mujeres for the summer.

Today's exercise happened to be closet liposuction. It was incredibly easy, once your mind is set to reboot, to differentiate between things you want to keep and things you don't. I used to have a rule for keeping neckties, which I then applied to the rest of my clothes. If it's not good enough for you to consider wearing it on any given day, it's not worth keeping. Two-thirds of my wardrobe didn't pass that test.

There's something exhilarating about seeing things disappear in your home, and realizing that almost everything that's gone really wasn't that important to your life. I imagine most people don't move in this direction unless they are forced to financially. Luckily, we're not in that position. This is simply a golden chance for us to find the magical minimum threshold of material possession that we can live happily with. Even if we swing too far and get rid of "too much" stuff, well, there are no shortage of retailers waiting to fill those needs.

The morale of the story is that once you set your vision of the life that you want to lead, it becomes easy to streamline around it. Our vision happens to be mobile. That's certainly not everyone's. If your vision is a large family with children and grandchildren running across your lawn, then you need things like a suitable house in a good school district with a big backyard. If you find yourself wondering if you have too much stuff, setting a vision for an ideal life can establish a useful filter for determining the possessions you choose. In the end, don't be afraid to reboot your life.