What can you live without?

// July 27th, 2009 // Decisions, Inspiration, Life (and the living of it)

It’s a question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately: What can I live without?

Last night I finished clearing and sorting through all my ’stuff’, and I have to say it’s an incredible feeling. I went through my clothes / shoes / jewellery / books / papers / kitchen things and put aside everything I don’t love. I kept asking myself, ‘Can you live without this?’ and most of the time the answer was a resounding yes! I haven’t been foolish, I’m not tossing away things that we’ll need when we get back, but I have done a thorough pruning of the items I own, and I’m left with far less than when I began.

I was saying to my man that I find it such an exhilarating feeling – that I love being less tied down to the world – and he asked me why. The answer I came up with was simple, but it rings so true for me: I want to know that there is less I can’t live without. If for some reason I lost everything, I want to know that I would be more okay (than a few weeks ago, when I had a whole heap more ’stuff’).

I remember when I was a little girl I used to have this fear that an earthquake would split our house in two. Don’t ask me why – Durban has never had an earthquake (ever!) and there was pretty much 100% certainty that our house would never split in two. But I was a worrier as a child, and this was one of my chief worries. It would always reassure me to know that even if our house split in two and my parents, younger brother and older brother were on the other side (because of where their bedrooms were), my middle brother and I would be together. And that meant I’d be okay.

Now I live in a much smaller apartment, and if it split in two odds are my man and I would both be on the same side! But it still reassures me to know that no matter what else I don’t have (as we travel around the world with only one suitcase each), I’ll always have him. He’s the one thing I would like very much not to have to live without.

What about you?

One Response to “What can you live without?”

Tunet Jordaan. says:

July 27, 2009 at 3:59 pm

You are on spot on in your statements on what a person needs…
Well, it is true. The act of mindless consumption and the media, has made us think that we need far more material possesions than needed. I love giving the clothes that I no longer wear to charity. It is better to have less and help others than to have more than needed.

I hope that the current economic climate teaches people to be more frugal.

Bridget McNulty