‘I miss my stuff’
There's a fantasy a lot of us have, once we've accumulated a house and cars -- and the payments that come with them -- and filled the house with stuff.
The fantasy involves getting rid of it all and living a blissfully simple life, traveling from place to place with a backpack full of Russian novels and peanut butter, sleeping on couches and buying day passes to museums. Or something like that.
Elizabeth Sanberg, writing at Wise Bread, is coming at this from the other side -- she and her husband radically simplified their lives. And now she sees some downside to the "anti-stuff" approach.
For nearly 4 months while traveling I lived out of a carry-on size backpack. Since returning to the States in late January, I’ve been wearing the same 4 sweaters and living in a semi-furnished apartment. A bed, couch, and table were included. My spouse and I got by with 2 towels, 4 forks and spoons, 4 plates, and 4 glasses borrowed from my parents.
Sanberg says she's come to miss all her old stuff, for a variety of reasons, including familiarity, practicality, convenience, and fun.
Automatic freezing ice cream machine. No thinking ahead required, just plug it in and go. Pure genius. I miss it. I miss my pasta maker and my non-Teflon pans. No, I never needed these items while traveling. Nor do I need them now. But wouldn’t it be fun to make homemade pasta and ice cream one night?
She's not arguing for consumer gluttony. Just a recognition that -- especially for those of us who never actually take the plunge -- the fantasy of the radically simple life may not be all it's cracked up to be.
Where do you fit on the continuum between a house full of stuff and a backpack with a single change of clothes? What was your most radically simple time of life, and how'd you like it?
