Collecting Memories Rather Than Stuff

If you wander around on the web long enough you might stumble on several blogs or websites of people that have, with great exuberance, declared that they plan on selling everything they own and travel the world!

Some of these people are single, some are married with kids. Regardless they all feel the need to leave what appears to be a normal life with family, friends and having a steady job to seek something different. Few appear to be able to define exactly what they are looking for by doing all this.

However, the best answer so far is that people want to collect memories versus stuff. Likewise people want to break out of the cookie cutter mold of normal life because for them it is just too boring and they feel as if they are missing something or are somehow trapped.

While there is absolutely nothing wrong with traveling and yes some people have made a career out of doing this, it begs the question, is there no place like home? Simply put if you’re not happy now, you take yourself with you wherever you go, so changing physical locations might not be the real answer. How many happy nomads do you really know?

Experiences versus Stuff In the United States we have created a billion dollar industry by way of self storage units where we store our stuff that we no longer can fit at our residence but are too attached to throw away. Yet, we all gasp when we watch the T.V. show “Hoarders” and shake our heads and ask each other: How can people live like this? While at the same time fail to see all the mess we have created around ourselves in our own lives.

I totally understand the need to disconnect from gathering more stuff. However, it is harder for me to connect with the need to travel the world. I guess the United States is just not big enough and it does not sound as exciting to say you are going to travel all over the United States. So, I guess people want the whole enchilada by exclaiming that they want to see the world and experience different cultures.

However, I can tell you a little secret, there are plenty of different cultures right here in the U.S. that would take years to discover, but that is another story! If we can for a moment let’s look at the reality of this “want” that people are expressing and understand this is a “want” not a “need!”

First and foremost I’m not saying this is a bad idea nor am I making a judgment call on the people who are doing this. I just simply want to focus on the reality of the situation.

Most folks doing this don’t have the passive income to sustain themselves long term. I’m guessing reality must hit hard and fast living on the cheap even if you are totally used to living on the cheap! Living from motel to motel or hostel to hostel can be interesting but there is a reason no one really lives there!

How many times have you heard the phrase: It's not the destination, but the journey that is important! Unfortunately there are no perfect places on earth, because someone every where you are going is always thinking there is somewhere better than where they are right now.

Our reality has been photo shopped to make us think what we have, where we are and how we live is substandard. In reality, we are the richest and most free people the world has ever known yet we are too self absorbed to see this. We don’t know how to wake up and smell the coffee because we are too busy looking for the things we don’t have to recognize the things we actually do possess.

Friends if you want to travel the world and see reality for what it really is, first look in the mirror. When you can be totally happy with what you see in your reflection then you might find you no longer have to pack.

The Silent Scream Inside

The older you get the more you realize life is passing by. If you are like many you might begin to wonder how much time you have left. Some people look at this in a realistic way while others tend to do everything they can to ignore facts. Middle aged is not fifty because no matter how much we would like to believe few people live to be one hundred and those that do have such minimal existence because they are worn out. You have to ask do you really want to last that long?

As you get older you begin to understand that you have either learned from your past or are continuing to make the same mistakes that you are so accustom to making.

Likewise, you quickly find that you are either bogged down with the “have to” or “should” lists in life or somehow you have realized the pointlessness of it all and have drifted to doing more of the things you really want to do, if you can figure out what that might be. While the movie is an older one, how many of us have our “Bucket List” and how many things have we really marked off that list? As easy as this might sound, figuring out what you might enjoy doing with your time and energy often can be a foreign concept in many respects.

A reality we all have to face is that the longer you live life the more you have numbed yourself as a natural means of protection. Broken hopes, dreams, missed opportunities and failures cause some of us to never wake up fully from the anesthetic because we ultimately fear the pain we might feel would destroy us.

Everyone I am sure at some point in their life takes an introspective look. However, after that first glance do we as individuals chart a new course? For many our imagined level of comfort that is derived from operating within our known boundaries keeps us firmly affixed, as if we were a train, that only had one set of tracks to run on.

Life, however, involves more than one direction and is made up of multiple layers of experiences and feelings. Unlike that of an onion you can never peel it all away but many times you find yourself realizing honestly how meaningless so much of what we spend our time doing actually can become.

After all we had no say in our conception. Likewise, for the vast majority of us we will have no say in our time of death. Most of us would like to believe that all that happens in between has some overall purpose. As individuals finding out that purpose can take a lifetime and for some the answer is never revealed.

Bill’s Dilemma

Bill Johnson was 63 and felt like the best years were behind him. Susan had been his wife and soul mate of forty-six years and had recently passed away suddenly from cancer. He never expected or planned that he would be the one alone. But now he was and having to deal with it the best way he could.

He could not believe how huge, empty and cold their house felt especially since the couple had been constant companions and never had children.

He began to wonder out loud to himself what in the world would happen now and what should happen to all his possessions once he was gone.

Over the years both Susan and Bill had been generous to several charities. Both Susan and Bill’s parents had died years ago, and Bill only had one younger bother named Roger, and Susan was an only child. Bill had never been close to his brother and only visited once a year usually around Christmas or Thanksgiving.

Bill did not consider himself a wealthy man but he had inherited some property from his family that turned out to be quite valuable especially after Wal-Mart wanted it for a new store.

Both Susan and Bill had worked over forty years before retiring. Susan had worked for the phone company and Bill had worked in sales all his life. His first sales job was with a life insurance company and later he worked for a hardware store before finally settling in to working for a family owned plumbing supply company for fifteen years. He worked the counter and was one of the best and most liked salesman. All the building contractors hated to see him retire because they knew the younger kid that took his place would not be detailed oriented or really go out of his way to help them like Bill did.

Bill and Susan grew up in families that constantly struggled to make ends meat and their upbringing caused them to both want to live modest lifestyles. No fancy cars or clothes and the most extravagant thing Bill ever purchased as a toy for himself was a few extra chisels, files and gouges for his wood whittling hobby.

Their retirement money was invested in conservative investments which were mostly tax free bonds and some blue chip stocks. The money from the sale of the property had been put in CDs. At Susan’s death Bill had totally forgotten about a whole life insurance policy Susan had taken out years ago at the phone company for $250,000.

Susan had always been the bookkeeper in the family and had everything organized in little piles in her office. It took Bill two weeks before he stepped in her office to begin to sort things out. After a few days looking at the check book and adding all the investment figures up he was shocked to see how their nest egg had grown to a nice little sum of over $1.5 million dollars which did not include their house which was paid for or their two older cars.

Bill’s younger brother Roger and his wife Jill had one son named Tom who was 22. Roger and Jill’s lifestyle was completely opposite of Bill and Susan. They had a big house, big new leased cars and even a big John Deer lawn mower! Roger and Jill wanted it all and wanted it all now. While both had good paying jobs, Bill realized they were living way beyond their means and knew they must be drowning in debt.

Like Bill, Roger also had inherited some land from their parents as well but quickly sold it right after he got it so he could buy more toys. While Bill and Roger love each other like bothers do they never understood how both could have grown up in the same house but be so totally different.

Bill knew from past experience that Roger’s way of living was all about making the payment and never about owning anything outright. It didn’t matter what it cost it only mattered if he could get it with no money down and how small the payment might be. In his mind being debt free was just a dream like winning the lottery.

Ten years before their parents died the boys had been given a check for $10,000 with an understanding that the money was to be used to help pay off bills. Roger paid off one credit card and Bill used the money to help pay off the little bit they owed on their home. A year later, Roger had run his credit card bill back up to $10,000 and Bill’s home was paid for.

Bill knew that what ever money he decided to give to his brother he would probably blow through it within a year or so and he wasn’t sure that was the right thing to do.

Roger likewise never understood why Bill never seems to enjoy life and have some fun. He saw his older brother work all the time and never spend much money on anything but that stupid hobby of his. He hated thinking about his childhood and having to wear his older brother’s used clothes and how everything he seemed to get growing up was used.

Roger and Jill felt they were happy but always were juggling the bills to make it work. Living on the edge of their financial ability was all they knew as normal and they were not interested in changing how they lived.

If you were the judging type you might draw your own conclusions as to what was “right” or “wrong” in the lives both bothers live. Regardless it all comes down to personal decisions and choices and living with those actions.

The path and decision you make truly is like a pebble thrown in a pool of water. The ripples, while small, have the ability to effect things that are far reaching beyond your immediate field of view.

Finally, I am reminded of a phrase I was told many years ago: You can only spend it once!

A dollar one spends on one’s self is lost and cannot be spent helping another.