I know a couple of people who moved over the summer. As it was for them and for many people in this country, the moving process is a very arduous extended process. That is not surprising, as according to the LA Times, there are 300,000 items in the average American home today. This poses a problem, as the largest truck you can rent from U-Haul is 26 feet. This is why so many people begin the packing process by decluttering their house and hauling stuff to Goodwill. Others choose to have a garage sale so that any of their neighbors who may be short of that 300,000-item figure can catch up. Many end up supplementing a truck by the use of moving pods or public storage units.
Most people can probably start the decluttering process in their garage. According to the US Department of Energy, 25% of people with two-car garages do not have room to park cars inside them and 32% only have room for one vehicle. The irony of this is that the value of the junk stored in those garages probably totals less than a couple thousand dollars. In other words, we banish our expensive automobiles, worth tens of thousands of dollars, outside in the driveway, exposing them to the punishing elements of Mother Nature in order to protect a couple thousand dollars’ worth of junk. And we call ourselves an intelligent species?
The cost of moving is an expensive endeavor as well. The average cost of hiring professional movers to transport the belongings of a three bedroom home today is somewhere between $960 and $1,600. Keep in mind that does not include any packing services. Then there is the cost of broken items or the predicament of purchasing duplicate items in to temporarily replace those items we cannot locate within the plethora of boxes dispersed throughout your new premises.
Mobility has always been an important aspect of the American way of life since the early pioneers. Our ability and willingness to move in order to pursue opportunity has been an inherent trait of our heritage that has contributed towards our ever-increasing standard of living. In recent years however, the propensity of Americans to move has significantly diminished. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Americans now move half as much as we did in 1948. In fact, we now move less than our northern Canadian neighbors do.
So why are we as Americans so far less mobile than we used to be? Perhaps one of the reasons is because we are restrained by all of the stuff we own. Clutter can be immobilizing, denying us the agility and flexibility to pursue new opportunities and adventures. We are enmeshed in an excess of stuff, stuff we purchased at one time because we thought it would make us happy, stuff that we hold on to just in case we may need for that mythical “someday” that never comes.
A couple of years ago I met a young woman in a support group I was participating in during a rough period of my life. She was a self-prescribed minimalist and was discussing her recent move to her boyfriend’s apartment. Her move was quick and uneventful as she had been able to pack all of her possessions into only six boxes. The number of boxes required for her move was not by coincidence as she regularly committed herself to the principle that her life must always fit into six boxes in order to keep her life simple and manageable. The introduction of a new item into her life meant that she must forego of an existing one. Though I quickly forgot her name, I forever remember her as “Six Box Girl.”
Though my first internal response to her six-box committed philosophy was cynical, I quickly realized the value of her discipline. I used to own two houses full of stuff. I can remember having to turn down a one-year contract to perform with a popular country act at a casino in Las Vegas over a decade ago. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity that was eradicated by the ownership of two locations of stuff with mortgagees to boot. Since meeting Six-Box Girl, I have gone about the process of cleansing my own life of stuff I do not need, and in doing so, found that I do not need a whole lot to make me happy. For the past couple of years I lived in Airbnb’s, enjoying the benefits of mobility and agility. The only active possessions in my life being my laptop, phone, Bluetooth speaker, kindle, some sporting equipment and my wardrobe that I am trying to trim down as well. I have found that shedding myself of clutter has saved me a great deal of money, as I have no incentive to purchase anything. I save time by not having to rummage through drawers and closets trying to track down something. I do not stay up at night worried about how to pay an overwhelming amount of bills and credit card debt. As a result, I have managed to get out of debt, spend more time sharing moments with friends and traveling this beautiful world that we call home. I may not be down to six boxes yet, but I have six terabytes of memories that I hope to create over the remainder of my life thanks to my newfound freedom.
