My family and I recently moved back to New York from London entailing the usual house office and school changes. As much as I was dreading the hassle associated with forwarding mail changing bank accounts and packing boxes I have to say it is a very healthy thing to do.
Over the last 20-odd years my wife and I later joined by two kids and a large dog have lived in New York London Paris and Tokyo. These have each been great professional postings for me and have given our family the opportunity to explore new cultures make new friends and expand our horizons — in every sense.
The other benefit that a major move offers is the chance to look critically at all the possessions clutter and detritus that one tends to accumulate over time and then leave them behind like a snake molting its old skin. While it may feel nostalgically pleasant to keep each pair of running shoes you have owned since high school the truth is unless you are Usain Bolt you can probably live quite happily with only one pair.
Kids of course are veritable magnets for every trinket that ever lived at the bottom of a birthday party goody bag as well as a menagerie of stuffed animals and incomplete card decks. However adults keep up their own with copper camels that screamed "buy me" at the Giza gift shop or the combination ice cream maker and hairdryer from Akihabara.
Child or adult the lesson is the same: We collect a lot of junk in our consumer lives. We should be thankful that we are able to afford these luxuries but also take the advantage of a new start to give our old possessions to any thrift store that will take them and live a less consumerist life in our new location.
Dear Tom Old trinkets are often associated with memories. While the fact whether we also shed the memory when we part with the trinket can be debated it is often the emotional bond (with the trivial bric-a-brac) that supersedes the economic one. I have moved homes several times and can share your feeling. As a child relocating between cities as a result of my father’s change of employment I had abandoned a copy of “Farewell to Cricket” by Don Bradman (for the only reason that it was a thick book). I haven’t managed to find another copy of it since. I guess what you have mentioned applies to digital photographs as well. Somehow the economic cost of retention (40 cents a gig) has a bearing on shaping our emotional decisions of cleaning up the clutter! Wish you and your family the best in New York Tom. Sincerely.
Dear Tom “We collect a lot of junk in our consumer lives. We should be thankful that we are able to afford these luxuries but also take the advantage of a new start to give our old possessions to any thrift store that will take them and live a less consumerist life in our new location. ” I am seeing your blog today after I had a chance to speak with one of your colleague in Thomson Reuters Legal so I guess this is really really a late comment. But I guess an apt one in current market condition. The current economic turmoil brought by one Wall Street to the entire consumerism / job / economic situation across the globe is profound. But I would also guess too much consumerism is equally bad. Not just that we buy more than what we need but we also spoil the environment by leaving a lasting memory for the future to curse us ! Humans unfortunately unlike animals are greedy and want all the comfort on earth when they are actually as equal as other living things on the earth. When you talk about one shoe pair that reminds of an incident with my son here in NY recently. I keep telling my 13 year old son (brilliant guy and equally witty) about my school & college life in India. One night Talked to him about my childhood days with a need to walk to the school (no bus or any other mode of transportation) always barefoot in that hot place etc. Then I told him you guys are having a comfy life here in the US and hope you guys understand the importance of being considerate about the future generation and avoid lavish spending for things that is not warranted etc. His immediate response to me was a) Dad may be I will tell my kids you know what. “Those days I followed my father from India to UK to US. Changing schools after school and worse we used to walk in that cold winter weather in London and in US it was just government supplied bus to school. We just used to go Florida Las Vegas Niagara for vacation”. “You kids are lucky to have supersonic air shuttle to go to school in a different artificial planet you guys go to Mars for vacation and do camping in space” etc etc. I just could not stop laughing the entire night. Regards Sai CSS Corp sairam.gopalan@csscorp.com