About travel, minimalism and happiness.
All my life until my travel I'm at now, I loved gadgets. I owned something for everything. If you would need something for a particular situation, may it be camping, technology or just something small to play around with, the chance that I would have something you might use was pretty high. Examples are: Backpacks, Rubik's Cubes, waterproof flashlights, knifes, a mini drone, Raspberry Pi's, little instruments. Of course, gadgets are fun. So I had them sitting somewhere in my room. They could be useful one day.
And there we are.
They could be useful one day.
Seems logical at first, but the problem is that this situation probably will never occur. So collectors like me will have all these things in our homes, stumbling across them every other day, just to hold it in our hands for a minute and think about what cool things we could do with that.
'Not the time right now,' we think and put it into another place.
When the time came to pack my things to move out of my place I lived for five years, I realized how many of those little things I gathered. But what astonished me the most was how much time I spend pondering about what I could do with these, noticing I barely did any of it.
So I started to declutter. Radically. Everything I did not put in use the past year had to go. Giving it away to people who were happy getting it. 'I could use that!' some of them said. Yeah, that's what I thought.
When I arrived at the airport, I was left with two bags, leaving the country for a trip that even I don't know how long it will take myself. Everything in my bags are things that I actually need right now. My camera equipment in one, clothes, sleeping bag and mattress in the other.
This felt good. Good to have everything you need right with you. It gives you the feeling of being free. You can go wherever you want. Right now, right here. If you need something, you get it.
When I arrived in Montreal I noticed how big Canada actually is. To be able to independently travel the country even to it's countrysides, I needed a car. And there I am now. I have a Van. It's not the biggest, but how much space do you need anyways? It fits my backpacks and me. Put a bed in there to sleep at night. Perfect. My new space to live.
At this point I realized, that living this minimalistic lifestyle makes you happier and lets you appreciate a lot of things you took for granted before: Having a shower from time to time and a warm meal. But most of all, the company these two things often come with.
Live simple, own less.