Personal Things and Personal Experiences

So, I haven't posted about my downsizing journey in some time, so I thought this would be a good time to revisit the topic.

The above picture shows just about all the personal stuff I own. In this box are the con badges and program books I've chosen to keep; the maps, brochures, business cards, and other bits I'm hanging onto; a few issues of magazines in which my fiction or nonfiction appeared in; and other personal odds and ends. This doesn't include the print books I still have or what's on my desk.

One box. Why so little?

It's easy to accumulate things, even when you live a life that's not all that active. You don't have to go to that many events to accumulate quite a number of badges, program books, business cards, and so on. Live long enough and the "stuff" will add up. It's why we now have a whole industry devoted to renting spaces to store what we accumulate when we can no longer store all of it in our own homes.

In recent years I've realized that I was keeping things that meant little to me. Why keep every piece of correspondence? Every badge and program book from every con I've been to? I have digital photos and memories, so do I also need to keep the physical stuff, too?

My personal answer is "no." Things seem to matter less and less to me. I'm trying to get to a place where experiences matter instead of things. It's ongoing work for me, at least the "having experiences" part. But I'm finding that I'd rather have experiences, however few they are, than having lots of things.

I'm going to try to write more about my downsizing journey in the future. I hope those posts will help you, or at least get you thinking about your own life and where you're going.