The memory of summiting continues to take me farther than almost any other “thing” I own. Since that trip, I exercise almost daily, consciously watch what I eat, strengthened my goal setting skills ever more, and donate for scholarships so the children of mountain porters do not have to be guides if they choose not to.

I didn’t gain as much from the things I bought over the same timeframe. My new car was bought back by the manufacturer as a lemon, I sold my house and home prices have not come back in my area, some of my stocks took a nasty plunge, I had to buy some new shoes for work…the list goes on.

So far, the magic moments in my life have taken me farther than most things I own.

P.S. I’m not anti-stuff. I cannot get to work using my memories alone; I drive my car. But my magic moments have appreciated more in my life than most things I own.

I’ve been debating this on my own blog, and from what people are saying they seem to remember their experiences so much better than I do.

If I could have perfect total recall, I’d go for experiences every time. (Then again I’m not sure I’d ever get out of bed, reliving my student years )

Ugh.

Pretty much anyone can do the simple test. If you look back over your entire life, and think of all of the best moments that you’ve had, they always revolve around People and Events.

They never revolve around a material item gained.

We earn good salaries, but most days live very frugally on about 50% of our take home pay. We pay cash for used cars and drive them until they are towed away. We haven’t had cable in 15 years, and 99% of the time buy an item only to replace something broken or worn out. I’ve never been a recreational shopper, and only go when I need something and then I work from a list. It’s now just the way we live and we forget how much others spend on “stuff” they regard as a normal part of life. In return for skipping the non-essention stuff, we spend the excess on travel and saving for early retirement. In 2008 we took the kids on a spring break Caribbean cruise and then spent the month of August in Italy, Greece & Germany. I can’t tell you how many times I heard some version of “wow that must have cost a fortune, or , I wish we could afford to do that”. It was all I could do not to reply “if you didn’t have 500 channels, enormous TVs, giant car payments, more clothes than you can wear, and eat out 5 nights a week you could have come with us!” Most folks can afford to do anything, just not all at once or not right away!

For us, doing without a lot of stuff allows us to travel with our children now rather than waiting for retirement and hoping we’re still physically up to it. No one way is right or wrong, we all just need to decide what our priorities are, and then not complain about what we don’t have. For some people the material stuff required to maintain a certain lifestyle is important. For me, physical stuff is the least interesting thing I can think of to spend my money on.

I can’t believe how much stuff we have and we have done 4 garage sales already. I think we will eventually end up moving to Colorado from California, and that is going to be a couple of big trucks.

Packing all this stuff, most of it I didn’t know I even had, really makes you realize how little we actually need. I just see all this money wasted in stuff that was shoved away somewhere. Now I am going to spend more money to box it up, move it to a different state and then find a place to shove it away.

I actually still have things in boxes in the garage from our move 5 years ago. Never even opened the box. Unbelievable.