When we look at what’s going on in the world, we’re seeing a shift. We’ve been living in high gear for a long time and focusing on accumulating more and more. Maybe it’s time to downsize.
Living in My Parent’s Basement
About a decade ago, I remember living in my parent’s basement, putting everything in boxes, and marking it all with stickers.
At the time my parents lived in a big house that had two connected apartments, one in the basement and one off the main floor. I was recently divorced and my ex had moved with our two sons 1,000 miles away to New York.
I moved out of my house to rent it, moved into my parent’s basement apartment for a few months as I started planning out my steps to move to New York.
It was at this time I realized that maybe it’s time to downsize and live a little differently. I had already given up a lot of what I had. What else did I really need?
Selling it All
So I packed up almost everything. Furniture, tools, linens, clothes. It was all on the block. I was ready to get rid of it.
I had a big yard sale and sold enough to make that two bedroom apartment more empty than a one bedroom studio. In fact I could probably make it easier by saying what I kept instead of what I sold. I only remember my bike, my computer, a washer and dryer, and my clothes. I’m sure there were a few more items, but I don’t recall.
The thing is that when I got rid of everything I didn’t feel scared; I felt free. I realized that all this stuff that I thought I needed was really junk that was cluttering my life. In fact, I now make it a constant to look around and wonder if maybe it’s time to downsize.
Maybe it’s something we all need to be asking.
A Different World
As we look around and we see the damage we are doing to the world and each other, as we see the people exploited and the high demands we put on ourselves, maybe it’s time to downsize.
We can easily see how much different the world is just from us doing a little bit of social distancing. We can see how much better it is.
We can also see how much time we make for those around us. We can see how little we need all those things that we thought we needed.
Maybe we don’t need all the stuff. Maybe we don’t need all the clutter. Maybe what we need is to focus on having more with less.
Maybe it’s time to downsize so that we can experience all that life has to offer.
