Getting rid of your stuff is a very difficult thing to do. I am not talking about people who collect things obsessively and addictively – that is called a hoarding disorder, and those people need professional help. I am talking about the situation when you want to get rid of some or most of your stuff because you think you have too much of them. This is especially a relevant problem for people who want to pursue a (digital) nomadic lifestyle and travel most of the time. After all, you can’t travel with dozens of heavy suitcases, can you?
Below, I will tell you how I got rid of my stuff. It was, after all, an easy thing to do.
Before I started my digital nomad life, I had a lot of things in my flat, just like everyone else. I never owned a flat, I rented them, but there was a period in my life when I lived in the same place for a very long time. And when I decided to move to a different one after about 15 years, I realized that I had too many unnecessary and useless things. These included clothes, kitchenware, collected objects that serve no purpose at all. But above all: books. Collecting books is a terrible addiction, and doesn’t even get you very high. In most cases, it is one of the most ridiculous things to keep a book after you have read it. Now especially in this digital age, I can’t remember when I last opened a physical book. When I did my doctoral research, which took five years, I swear I only touched physical books a couple of times even for research purposes.
I got rid of all the unnecessary things gradually, but it took three relocations. During the first one, I threw out a whole lot of clothes, among them old “nice” shirts that you last wore ten years ago, jackets, winter coats, forgotten old shoes, you name it. I also realized I still had a million cassette tapes (I wonder how many of you are asking now: wtf is that?), floppy disks (same question, I guess) and a zillion other, absolutely unusable things.
This was the time that I decided that I didn’t need my library either. I had about 1.500 books. I realized that bookshops would pay too little, but it would take too much hassle for me to sell them individually, so I gave away at least a quarter of them free of charge to strangers and acquaintances, and a friend of mine bought the rest.
Eventually, I got rid of almost everything I had. At the end, it was already very easy. I looked at a jacket for example, and if I realized that the last time I wore it was many years before, it had to go. I still have a few books, some that were dedicated to me by the author, or a special book that I got from a close friend. I have about 10 such books now – but of course I am not using them. I don’t even see them, actually, because I am always on the road.
All that is left now is a few warm clothes, a few jackets and shirts, some bed linens, three laptops, a printer and a few other things. All of them are stored on two shelves in a friend’s house, and the rest is what I am carrying with me now. They easily fit into one backpack and a shoulder bag.
It is a wonderful feeling! You should really experience it. It liberates you so much. Now, I am travelling with only a few things (see my blog post about it), and seldom have I felt that I was missing something. The best example that I can give you for something that I was missing is a pair of nail scissors. But even that is something that I did have while travelling, but it was confiscated from me at one point at an airport security checkpoint, when I was only travelling with hand luggage. But then, it doesn’t cost a fortune to buy a new pair, should you so badly need them.
Do you want to get rid of unnecessary things too? Whether you want to do it for travelling purposes or not, here are some provocative questions for you to consider.
If you answer the above questions (honestly), you may be able to get rid of some of the things more easily – but of course only if you basically think you have too many possessions. If you don’t think so, then don’t bother with these questions 🙂