The Importance Of Downsizing

In just a few weeks, I’ll be boarding a plane and making the roughly four hour trip to Ontario (seven if you count a quick nacho stopover in Calgary). As I’ve indicated on Facebook, my plan is to move to Hamilton, Ontario for probably a year or so, mostly to work with Dale on some projects at BraveNewCode. Without a doubt I’m looking forward to a new change, as I originally moved out here to Chilliwack to help get BraveNewCode off the ground, something that happened nearly five years ago.

In terms of logistics, Ontario is actually quite a bit better for me. It’s closer to Europe, which I love visiting. It’s close to many other cool cities, such as New York, Boston and Montreal. And it’s also just a short hop to the Caribbean. My girlfriend is from Brazil, and it’s much easier for me to fly from Toronto to Brazil than it is from Vancouver to Brazil, so that’s an added bonus. Couple all of that with the fact that we recently took possession of a new office, it’s really a no brainer for a period of time.

Prior to leaving on my first trip to Argentina in 2010, I went through and purged most of my stuff, simply so I didn’t have to store it. It’s was a painful process, but looking back I realized that it was incredibly freeing.

I think most people nowadays place too much emphasis on owning “stuff”. Instead of acquiring memories and life experiences, we spend most of our adult lives buying couches, cars, televisions, iPhones, and then doing it all again every few years when an item breaks down or something new comes out. It’s not until you break the cycle for the first time that you come to realize how pointless and expensive it all is.

Last week I opened my storage room here at home and realized that even though there were 20 boxes of “stuff”, I hadn’t opened a single box in that room in well over a year. I decided then that there obviously wasn’t anything important in any of them, so I got rid of the entire lot. I immediately felt better the moment it was all gone and that room mostly empty.

By the time I leave for Ontario, I will probably have gotten rid of 2/3 of the items I own. All that I’ll have left is around 15 boxes or so in a storage locker, and two suitcases which I’ll take on the plane with me.

And for me that’s enough.