If only...

It’s been an interesting first week and a half on the road. Feels like it’s been a lot longer than that...

Robin & I had some challenges to start out. I’d like to say that we handled them better than I thought we would, but I still have to give myself a failing grade.

In a process I began over two years ago, I’ve been letting go of “things”. It has really been a liberating experience, and I have progressively felt less and less distress. First it was luxuries like cable TV, followed by material objects. “Learn to let go of everything you fear to lose.” Once you lose them, you don’t fear losing them anymore. Dealing with the fear of loss is worse than the loss itself and the life that follows.

I think this is particularly difficult for Americans to understand. This fear of loss is almost celebrated in our culture. We’re so used to the fear that we don’t even realize it’s there.

Living once you’ve lost things is easy. The tricky part is learning to live without the fear of loss even when you still have “things”. Then, if (or when) you lose your things, your life doesn’t change - or it changes very little.

Once Robin & I were able to make that shift in our thinking (for material things), we were easily able to physically let go of 75% of our things when we moved to the studio in downtown Oshkosh. Followed by letting go of 50-75% of the remaining things when we left for our trip.

70% of our stuff is now in Keith and Patty’s basement. 30% is in our car. That’s still A LOT of stuff, but it’s much less than we thought we needed two years ago.

The funny thing about this whole process is that although I’ve learned to let go of some things, my nature causes me to value the things that remain even more.

There is something inside me - not just the American in me, but the human in me - that has to worry about things. (At the moment I’m worried about MY things.) Now that material objects have less value to me overall, the trip and the hike have taken over my consciousness. My concerns have moved elsewhere. This is why I could care less about the thousands of dollars we’ve put into the car in the last few months - but also why I was so distressed when it needed to have work done. I’ve given up most of my things and nearly all of my time from June to December 2012 to make this trip happen. What if the trip doesn’t happen because I have to put all the money into the car? If I could have let go of the sense of entitlement I have regarding this trip, I wouldn't have been so concerned about the work being done on the car.

My goal is to ultimately shift my concerns - at which point the term “concerns” may give way to “concentrations”. The less I care about MY things, the more stress-free I feel, and I can concentrate my energies on things that are more important.

I still have a long way to go. After several days in a row of good luck and great experiences, I’m happier than I’ve ever been, so it’s easy now. The next step is to extrapolate from what I’ve learned from losing material things, so I can “let go” of this trip and this hike in my mind. If the time comes when I have to really leave it behind, maybe then I can handle the loss with a passing grade.

If nothing else, I've let go of my hair...