I have a lot of stuff.
I don’t know how it happens. I move a lot. I don’t have a ton of money. I honestly don’t really buy stuff anymore… but I still have a whole ton of it.
And it all feels pretty necessary. For one reason or another, whether it’s an emotional reminder, or a physical ‘necessity’, it’s hard to imagine living without the avalanche of stuff that I’ve surrounded myself with.
That’s where minimalism comes in. Lots of people these days, especially in the personal finance sphere, are going through the exercise of paring down.. trying to figure out what they really need, cutting the ‘fat’ out of their chaotic lives.
It’s a nice thought: maybe I could live with just 50 things! But I think it’s a bit like trying to have a ‘small’ wedding. Once you actually start writing things down on a list … it becomes real big… real fast.
So the extent of my minimalism has been reading blogs and articles about minimalism. Which, as you might be able to guess, isn’t quite the same as actually following through…
Sound familiar? Well… for any of you who might be in a similar situation may I recommend…
A forced lesson in minimalism
There are lots of tips and tricks for paring down. But this simple solution may best them all…
Just sign up for a month long bike trip!! (longer would also be acceptable)
That’s what I’ve spent a big chunk of my summer doing. I was part of a company called THE BICYCLE OPERA PROJECT (which is pretty cool, and you should definitely them check out). We biked a traveling opera show around Canada, carrying our sets, costumes and instruments along with us. Basically everything we needed for the month, we needed to be hauling.
Now, I’ve lived out of a suitcase before, for a long time. But this was a whole new level. Expert level, in fact.
There’s no room for even the smallest suitcase on a bike, so you have to settle for panniers.
Panniers are those little saddlebags you may have seen hanging on the back of bikes from time to time. And although they come in varying sizes… none of them are big. The good news? You get TWO of them. Let the slow claps begin…
Here’s what I settled on:
*Not included was the stuff I wore while biking: bike jersey, shorts, and shoes.
[bscolumns class=”one_half”]
Pannier One: Personal Stuff
1 light sweater
2 t-shirts
1 pair of pants
1 pair of shorts
1 pair of slip on summer shoes
4 pairs underwear
2 pairs of socks
Toiletries (toothbrush, deodorant, etc…)
Sunscreen
Sunglasses
Rainjacket
[/bscolumns][bscolumns class=”one_half_last_clear”]
Pannier Two: Work Stuff
Computer
2 notebooks
Power cords
Tupperware (for road food)
Pens/Pencils
[/bscolumns][bscolumns class=”clear”][/bscolumns]
It seems like a lot when you write it down (#smallwedding), but it’s not all that much compared to what would normally come along with you on a month long trip. I also know that it’s a bit crazy to bring a computer on a bike trip, but I was doing a bunch of work, including blogging and finishing a course… so I decided to pack it.
Here’s the interesting part.
I didn’t really need all of it. I wore the pants once, and the socks pretty much never. One of the notebooks could have stayed at home. Even in the collection of what I considered to be the bare essentials … there were extras.
Lesson (and I’m sure you could see this coming): I really don’t need all that much stuff… on a bike trip, or in real life.
Note that the lesson I took away wasn’t… “I need less than I think”…. It’s that…”I don’t need much AT ALL”.
4 weeks into my forced minimalism experiment and I didn’t find myself wishing I had something else to wear, jonesing for an extra t shirt, or a more stylish pair of shoes. I was super content.
Not just another minimalist:
So it’s not shocking.
Man lives on less. Man realizes he doesn’t need much to be happy.
You’ve heard it before. You’ve read it before.
For some of you it’s a message that will ring true, and for some it just doesn’t apply.
But for any of you who are really struggling to reconcile the things you want and need with the challenge of making a living in the arts… it might be particularly useful to think about.
The more stuff that you’re carting around, not just physical stuff … but mortgages, car payments, debt payments, expensive hobbies, family obligations… the harder it is to keep ‘pedalling’.
And the thing is, some of those things you’ve been carrying for so long that they’re part of you. They feel like needs… but they’re not helping you get where you want to go.
So… what could you let go? What would make it into your ‘panniers’? What’s on your must have list? Is it huge? Is it shorter than you thought?
What if your life was a little lighter than it is now… ?
How would that feel?
