12. Less to Carry, More to Live

Recently, I visited a friend who’s considering a major life change: selling his house and moving onto some property. Not just moving his personal belongings, but relocating a home-based business as well. Add in an adult son living at home and two dogs, and the scope of that move becomes clear pretty quickly.

To be clear—he doesn’t have too much stuff. I’ve seen far worse. His home isn’t overly cluttered or chaotic. It’s simply… full. Full of the accumulated weight of a life lived responsibly, creatively, and productively. But as I looked around his place, all I could think about was the work ahead of him. The logistics. The packing. The sorting. The decisions. The emotional gravity of it all.

And what surprised me most was my own reaction.

As my wife and I sell things, give things away, and gift items to family, I’ve realized something important: I don’t want stuff. Not as a goal. Not as a marker of success. Not even as a comfort.

I want mobility.
I want flexibility.
I want space—physical and mental.

I want to travel more. Take photographs. Be creative. Play. Wander. Notice things. I don’t feel the need to impress anyone with what I own, and I don’t feel compelled to acquire things simply because that’s what we’re told to do next.

I’ve also come to see how easy it is to confuse comfort with accumulation—and how dangerous it is to look for happiness in objects. Things don’t just take up space on shelves; they take up space in our time, our energy, and eventually our attention. Every possession becomes something that must be stored, cleaned, repaired, insured, moved, or decided about later.

That cost adds up.

I plan to arrive in Europe with six, or less, suitcases. No crate or moving container. Honestly, it’ll be mostly clothes and shoes, my guitar, a camera and just a few other small things. So, trust me, we really are getting rid of most everything we’ve ever owned. The only things that I think I will miss (when it comes to things), are the kitchen tools that allow us to create Christmas (or Thanksgiving) feasts at our house – as well as the tools that I use to fix things or build things.

One small but meaningful shift we made years ago was stepping away from gift-heavy Christmas celebrations. Instead, we focus on opening our home. We cook a huge breakfast and a big dinner so yeah, there’s a lot of food. Family comes over. We talk. We linger. We eat too much. We play music. We make memories instead of piles. That change alone brought more joy than any wrapped package ever did.

And yet—especially here in America—it’s hard to escape the gravitational pull of consumerism. Storage units. Bigger garages. Faster shipping. More convenience. More upgrades. More, more, more. Most of us don’t lack for things. What we lack is margin.

Margin shows up as time that isn’t already spoken for, energy that isn’t drained by maintenance and logistics, flexibility to say yes to something unexpected – or no without stress. Margin is what disappears when our lives become too full.  Every extra possession quietly consumes a little margin. Things need to be stored, cleaned, organized, repaired, remembered, dealt with.

This desire to live with less isn’t something I’m hoping to find in Europe. It’s something I intend to bring with me. A conscious decision to travel lighter—literally and figuratively. To design a life that prioritizes experiences over inventory, movement over maintenance, and freedom over accumulation.

Minimalism, for me, isn’t about deprivation. It’s about choice. About deciding what earns a place in my life—and what doesn’t. About removing weight so that when opportunity appears, I’m not stuck sorting through boxes.

Less stuff.
More life.