The view of Petaluma on one of our walks.
Jill and I kept talking to Mitch and discussing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It seems, and this may just be confirmation bias but Jill and I both think that more and more people are trying to figure out how to do more with less.
I’ve been getting a lot of friends asking me how to minimize their possessions to maximize their life.
I’ve helped them figure out how to live on less, travel with less, take up less space in the world, and figure out how to own things instead of having things own them.
Last night, in fact, Jill and I spent an hour going through each of our check in bags and discarded about half of what we had in them.
We doubt we can get down to one check and two carry ons between us each check in will be very light since they are both only about half full.
Once we figure out where we are going to settle, in about a year, we will be able to unload more of it since I’ll know if I need my cycling gear.
Cycling gear? Yep, I have my cycling spandex and cycling shoes (with clip-less pedals) that I’m dragging around everywhere.
This takes up about 1/4 of my bag and seems like a waste.
However, it will allow me to get around easily, when we settle down, and the cost of carrying it is much less than having to purchase it again.
This is a cost benefit analysis that I’ve done and the benefits far outweigh the costs.
My friend, Christopher Rubin, is also going to open a bike store in the next few months.
I want to help him and we plan to ride our bikes to work together and that means I’ll be needing these clothes sooner rather than later. It is also a free way to get healthy and lose weight which I want to do also.
Mitch seems to want to have a simpler life and we all talked about how that could happen, for both him and us, and what we are doing to accomplish that goal.
This doesn’t just mean minimizing but doing what you want, when you want and knowing that you could die, at any moment, and how do you want to live until that happens.
For Jill and me, it is traveling, seeing friends and family, and exploring the world.
We’ve both simplified our lives enough that we can make this happen.
We can help you do the same if you want.
When we walk, we talk about how to accomplish this and share our knowledge.
That is why we walk.