geishaboy500
When Alan and I fly anywhere, we only bring carry on luggage. It takes a bit of doing to edit the list of things I might need down to a lightly-packed small bag. But it’s so totally worth it. I travel light and I’m not faced with a million choices of what to wear in the morning when I just want to head out the door and start exploring.
In the last few years, we’ve started escorting friends and family members on trips to France. They’re happy that we can do the introductions for them. But at first they’re nervous about the luggage restrictions. We give them a list of suggestions. And assure them that they will, in fact, survive.
If they haven’t been convinced by the ease with which we get through the airport and onto the plane, they certainly are when we get to waft right past baggage claim and out of the airport a good hour ahead of our fellow travellers. It’s just so liberating!
I don’t know how our travelling companions feel about the experience once they get home, if that sense of freedom stays with them, but it makes me want to travel through my entire life that way.
Fewer choices make decision-making a non-issue. When you have just one jacket or pair of dress shoes, well, you just put them on and go. Add more choices and the time spent making decisions seems to grow exponentially.
Fewer bits and pieces in the house mean less time spent cleaning, sorting and organizing them, leaving me more time to explore my own place in the world.
And come moving day? Well, the less crap I have to pack up and take with, the closer I am to that feeling I have as I walk past the baggage claim.
No, I haven’t achieved minimalist nirvana yet. I’m still fallible, gullible even, open to the lure of the easy purchase. But I’m getting closer to the mark. And it feels really darned good.
How about you? Does going through life “carry on only” appeal to you? Or do you like a certain amount of clutter?
I’m very much a “carry on only” sort. My garage recently got remodeled, and sorting and culling the stuff I had stored in there caused me to go through the rest of the house and get rid of fifty garbage bags full of my stuff. I really love opening up my dresser and being able to see with one look what I have in my drawers, and I like opening up my cabinets and being able to spot at once what I have what’s missing. I think that controlling clutter is one of the best skills I ever taught myself!
And it sounds like you’ve learned it really well!