I always enjoy “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference
– Robert Frost
The “American Dream” is to own a house with a white picket fence and maybe a dog. While we started down that road, we ultimately decided to take the road “less traveled by.”
What started with a question of “why not?” has turned into the decision to forgo a traditional stick house (we’re renting ours for now) to live and travel by RV. For us, the road less traveled is not just about driving our RV to the places we need to be, but also about consciously living with less stuff.
Preparing for the Road
We are not pack rats. Our house didn’t have lots of accessories or nick knacks. And yet, we were surprised and a bit scared by all the “stuff” we accumulated in our 6+ years in the house.
We began the process of de-cluttering to only realize it would take several passes to get down to the “necessities” and once we thought we were at the necessities it took another two to three passes to get our belongings into the storage facility and RV. We used Craig’s list to sell a lot of the big items, we made numerous trips to Good Will and the local clothing drop box, and our family and friends became the new owners of many of our belongings.
I joke that if the RV had a back window we would not have been able to see out of it when we left. In the end as the time was quickly running out we packed anything we thought we might need on our journey into the RV.
TOO MUCH STUFF!
Needless to say we arrived in Myrtle Beach with TOO MUCH STUFF.
So we began the process of once again paring down. Some has just gone in the trash, some has been shipped back to the storage facility, Good Will is a short drive and Michael’s aunt and uncle’s condo has some new items as well.
So after almost seven weeks on the road, I love living with less. In fact as we continue to streamline the RV I’m more and more willing to get rid of stuff.
I hear talk about emotional baggage and how it weighs you down but I have yet to hear about our belongings and how they weigh us down. When you get done with your day and try to figure out how to spend you evening you can choose from your TV, your computer, your WII, your Nintendo DS, your iPod, your Nook, and the list just goes on.
What happened to conversations at the dinner table, board games, reading a book, or just sitting quietly by your self?
Our quest to have the latest and greatest has lead to an increase in self-storage facilities (at home I had three facilities with climate controlled units to choose from and seven if we didn’t desire climate controlled). I feel confident that we all know someone who has a basement, attic, or spare room that is so cluttered they can’t even find the special items they just had to save.
I’m not claiming to be cured yet of my desire for stuff but I am seeing how it holds me back.
It’s a lot easier to get things done when I don’t have to hunt for the necessary supplies, or spend time cleaning, or moving stuff so I have a clean and clutter free place to work. However of all the things I have learned so far on our adventure the most surprising is how much I don’t miss stuff and how much I want to get rid of more so we continue our adventure on the road less traveled.
