I came across an article earlier this month and thought it would be a good topic of discussion for us JobSchmobber types. The article (linked below) talks about a 45 year-old woman in Minnesota who decided to sell most of her possessions in order to start over and become free of them. She planned to keep her dog, her cat, photo albums and some clothing.

She was quoted in the article as saying: "This might be mid-life, but it's not a crisis. It's mid-life excitement," she said. "I don't need it all. I don't use it all. I just have it all. Actually, it has me."

She didn't really have a plan. She just knew she wasn't happy and decided to make a change, sell her stuff and move out west. The thought of doing that would make most of us shit our pants! All the "what ifs" that come along with that are downright petrifying.

Sadly, she ran into a bunch of snags with the eBay auction and it was pulled. And her second attempt didn't produce a bid that met her reserve. I am not sure where it stands now.

I have to say as scary as it seems and as unlikely as I am to grow the balls to actually do something like this in the near future, it is something I think about doing from time to time. I suppose I am doing it little by little because each year I hold a garage sale and I haven't bought any "replacement junk". And if you knew me personally, this is the part where your eyebrows would raise and you would ask, "Seriously??"

Because I've always been a "stuff" kind of person. Not a pack rat by any means, but someone who would buy some kitschy thing just to cheer herself up. Someone who could not visit a touristy spot without buying the touristy "must-have" souvenir. You know, hula-girls, shot glasses, coconut monkey sculptures, mini-replicas of the Eiffel tower, little jade Buddhas, that kind of thing.

Like most Americans, I get my information from TV. So it was fitting---albeit embarrassing to admit---that my personal semi-epiphany about "stuff" came from a TV show. That show, was "Lost". During the first season, there was an episode where all the stranded island survivors had to move from the beach, where they had made camp, to the jungle in order to survive. All the survivors, had little more than the clothes on their backs and they easily made the run for the jungle. However, the rich girl character, Shannon, had 2 full suitcases of stuff she was guarding. The image of her, alone, struggling with two suitcases across the sand to get to the trees made a giant impression on me.

That impression was "Holy crap! That would be me! Attached to my stuff!". I decided right then and there that I didn't want to have all this stuff weighing me down. It's stuff I have to worry about dusting, stuff I would cry for if my house burned down, stuff I have to insure, stuff I work in a job to pay for and stuff I have to box up and move from house to house. And that stuff really doesn't make me happy. I'm nowhere close to selling all my possessions like Ms. Perry, but little by little I've been selling it off or giving it away. And the money from the sales goes directly into my vacation fund.

I gotta tell ya, it's felt really good. And I feel a lot lighter. I feel much more in control. If my house burned down today, I would lose very little. That's an awesome feeling. Sure I still get the urge to buy crap and sometimes I give in. But my resistance gets stronger every time. It's my own personal contribution to being able to feel more liberated from the working world. If I'm buying less stuff, I don't need to depend on a job. It's helped me get to the point where I know I would not go under if I decided to quit it all and run off into the sunset. And if I lost my income, I'm now used to having less so I would suffer less.

Whattya think? Could you do it? Could you sell all your stuff? Could you sell some of your stuff? Could you do with less? What could you give up to help you feel more in control?