I had spent the last four months living in a tiny, dark, and dingy room in an extended-stay hotel on the corner of 75th street and Amsterdam in the city of Manhattan.
Having little money, I had brought with me everything I would need in order to survive on a limited budget. Most important was the full set of tools and utensils for preparing my meals. (The hotel provided a single-burner hotplate and a mini-fridge.) My arsenal of cookware included plates, cups, bowls, and silverware, as well as a full set of pots and pans, flippers, wooden spoons, a ladle, a can opener, etc.
Now it was time to leave the city and head back to Iowa. I packed up all of my clothes and survival supplies into my three large soft-shell suitcases, loaded them up onto my shoulders via the shoulder straps (the suitcases didn’t have wheels), and made my way out of the hotel toward the subway station.
Under the weight of the bags every step felt arduous. And the straps were digging deeply into my shoulders. But it was a warm, sunny day in May. And it was only three blocks to the subway station. I could endure it.
As I approached the station after walking the three blocks, my shoulders felt like they were on fire. “Man these suitcases are heavy,” I thought. (Later, upon checking in for my flight home I would learn that the three suitcases weighed in at a total of approximately 130 pounds.) But it was going to be fine. I was already descending the stairs to the subway station. In just a few minutes I’d be able to set the suitcases down and let the train do the work of transporting them.
“Shit.”
I had failed to consider the fact that I would have to squeeze myself and my three very heavy, very bulky suitcases through the rather narrow and constrained space of a turnstile.
I heaved up one of the suitcases. Because it had no structure, the suitcase turned into a giant floppy ball, becoming too wide to fit through the bars that enclosed the turnstile. Holding it up with one hand, and pushing with my shoulder and the other hand, I shoved it through the top of the turnstile. It fell on the concrete on the other side with a heavy thud and an embarrassing clank from the pots and pans inside. I then pressed the second suitcase through, and then the third.
“Whew! That was a little daunting. But now I’m pretty much home free.” The train arrived a few minutes later. I got on, set the suitcases down next to a seat, sat down, and was on my way to Grand Central Terminal. From there it would be just a bus ride to Newark Airport where I’d finally catch my flight home.”
The trip to Grand Central was a breeze. Sitting is easy. Letting your stuff just rest in one place is easy.
At Grand Central, I got off the train. Now I just had to walk through the underground subway tunnels to the bus station.
So, I walked.
And I walked.
And I walked.
“Jesus! How far is it?”
The 130 pounds of suitcases were really bearing down on me. I was struggling. Really struggling. People could see it, too. Several people felt so bad for me that they approached me and offered to help carry them. If New Yorkers are offering help to a stranger in the subway, you know it’s gotta be bad. But, despite desperately wanting their help, me being a nervous 21-year-old kid from rural Iowa who’d been traumatized as a child by films like The Warriors, I politely refused and continued to trudge on.
At last, after what felt like a mile of pulling a plough with my shoulders through dense, rocky terrain, I made it to the bus station. I got on the bus to Newark and caught my flight home.
On the flight home, I contemplated what I’d just put myself through.
“This was totally unnecessary,” I thought. I had believed that I was going to need all that stuff in order to survive. I had believed that I was going to need it all when I got home. But the truth was, I didn’t really need any of that stuff anymore. In fact, I hadn’t really needed most of it at all to begin with.
And that’s how it is with most things. We think we need this, and that, and the other thing in order to survive and live a happy, comfortable life. We buy houses, and cars, and televisions, and sofas, and china cabinets, and special ladles for serving gravy at Christmas dinner, an two slow cookers because “what if I host a party and need more than one”, and a million other things that we think we “need”. But so much of this stuff goes unused and simply weighs us down. It’s a burden. It keeps us stationary and immovable. It keeps us tied down. It keeps us from feeling free.
When we buy and keep only things we actually use regularly, we may feel that your living space breathes more and feels cleaner and neater. And we may find that we ourselves feel light, calm, and free.
References
| ↑1 | Enrique Vázquez from México, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons |
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