We had the opportunity to help a friend pack up his house and move. That is an experience that no one really wants to do.
Why is that?
Because we all have too much stuff. We like our stuff. Stuff tells the story of our life. But when we have to move it all, we begin to realize how much stuff we have, and how much is unnecessary.
And it certainly told the story of my friend’s life. He had an amazing life of building fun things and pranks, and just creating unique items. He is an engineer. So as we pulled something out of his garage shelves, we’d ask him, “What is this?” Then he’d tell a story about that item, why he made it or who gave it to him. His stuff was really the story of his life.
But I was super impressed with how much he threw away. He had a whole truck full of stuff that was headed to the dump.
He gave me the task to throw away a little pile in the corner that he said was just garbage. But I was the wrong guy to do that work. I looked through it and said, “What, you’re throwing this away?” “That’s a perfectly good CD!” Until I realized, we can find all these movies or music somewhere in the cloud. So, eventually, I was able to do it. (Except for the unopened, still in the package, “Star Wars – The Force Awakens” DVD.)
In reality, our life is what happens, what we choose to do, and how we choose to interact with other people. It’s not made of stuff.
You can’t take it with you.
(But I’ll keep it as long as I can 🙂
The Rex Blog 