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A story of reducing
After we had solemnly made and sealed our big decision for our adventure joy of life, action was called for. How do you reduce to a minimum and dissolve a completely established life that had grown together for almost 30 years? It felt like a Herculean task with thousands of individual activities that had to be thought of and implemented. In order to get security and some peace into our heads, I redesigned a wall in the office into an action wall: Themes defined, subdivided with coloured Post-Its and placed in a timeline that became more and more refined over time. Each Post-It was an action, usually with a few sub-actions. And so the wall became more and more full and colourful and it was already a small sensation when we could stick a Post-It on the Done page! We slowly became aware of everything we had actually purchased, insured, booked, subscribed to, collected, kept, designed - and what now needed to be sorted out, sold, cancelled, dissolved and given away.
Are 4 suitcases enough for a new life?
We have opted for a life of overlanding through southern Africa. Overlanding means: "Travelling independently to remote places where the journey is the main goal." So we're not just swapping the location of our belongings. We are not simply packing a container full and shipping everything to South Africa. Instead, we are reducing our lives to what is most important to us. The basis is our new living space: from 185 square metres of house to 12 square metres of off-road trailer plus towing vehicle 😉 You can find out how we came to the new home, what it looks like and how we live in it today in the blog article "Wildboar - Our Boar Trailer" read and listen.
This reduction means taking everything from our furnishings, all clothes, household goods, home textiles, tools, sports equipment, my office to mementos and photos "in hand", looking at them and sorting them out. Until everything important fits into 4 suitcases.
We spent days and weeks photographing our inventory, describing it in texts, posting everything on sales platforms and receiving buyers.
How often did we completely tidy and clean the house from top to bottom? Whether it was for the appointment with the film team, which was shooting an image film about our house and the life in it, or for the architectural photographers, who were creating the image material for the exposé, or then for the viewing rounds with the interested parties.
We used an entire holiday to look at our thousands of slides: projected onto the kitchen front, one of us took the highlights of our many travels and life highlights from the magazine, the other then digitised these slides. Until well after midnight...
Another day we sat on the floor for hours and rummaged through our boxes of memories. How we laughed and cried - so many moments and pieces from our lives!
There were days when we scanned and packed all the books, CDs and vinyl records for sale. In many other different stages we rummaged through our dressing room, tried on clothes and packed them for second hand. Equally over days we tackled our kitchen, office, living area and workshop. We also organised two garage sales.
We also had to sell our cars. It was particularly difficult for us to sell our old, beloved Landy, a 1967 Land Rover. What it was all about, why it was so important for us and how we made our vision come true in the first step with it, you can find in the blog article "Make your vision come true in small steps".
All these actions over weeks, besides our jobs and marketing our house... we often felt very very tired.
What happens when you reduce everything in your life to a minimum?
And yet this reduction was a very liberating, deep process: on the one hand, we relived our lives in many areas, remembering a multitude of special moments and people. How fulfilling it is to take the time for that. And it freed us step by step more. We felt how minimalising made us light and free. Again and again we were shocked at how much consumption and supposedly necessary things we had acquired. And how saturated all the people are and they had no need for the things. We are very grateful that we got to know Heike, who volunteers at the Tafel, through our second flea market. And so we gave away boxes of big and small things to the organisation, seemingly bringing huge joy to the people. How nice, thank you Heike!
On the other hand, it has often been very painful to part with things that seem valuable and very special to us. We knew why we had bought them, how long we had worked for them or which also reflected our personality. We helped to load our beautiful objects into the buyers' cars, saw how happy they were and drove away. And we looked on afterwards as another part of our lives became a thing of the past. But these perceived barriers are precisely the ones we knew overcoming would set us free. Because we always had our why and our adventure lust for life crystal clear in front of our eyes.
The last weeks before our departure were nevertheless borderline: borderline in physical and mental strain. We worked for days and nights and felt our energy slowly running out. Very gruelling was the house sale, which unfortunately went very slowly due to the sudden real estate crisis and on which we put the main focus. And that was exactly the crux of the matter:
While we were sorting out, we had roughly compiled and put aside what we wanted to take with us on our adventure in the possible 4 suitcases, but most of the time we were busy with the rest of the clearing out, viewing and selling of the things. And we emptied, cleaned and prepared the house for sale even after we left, because unfortunately we still hadn't found a suitable buyer.
Then it was time: the last day in Germany, in Hohenstadt, in our house!
We wanted to do the final touches, pack our 4 suitcases and say a last goodbye to our beloved neighbours Frida & Schore, who have always been there for us and will now also take care of the disposal, collection and distribution of the last things. The plan was to drive our rental car to the hotel in Munich in the afternoon. From there to the airport the next day, departure at 9 am. But we just couldn't finish and it was already evening when we started packing our suitcases. So we stuffed our favourite items of clothing, equipment, tools, cosmetics and personal belongings into the suitcases - and there was too much, far too much! Oh no, these were all the last, beloved pieces that absolutely had to go! We had completely misjudged how much or how little would fit into 4 suitcases. And we should have packed a test pack much earlier to see what would work and what would not. So now we sat in front of 4 suitcases in the cold, empty bedroom of our house, completely exhausted and overwhelmed, and had to make the seemingly impossible decision to take either this or that with us. And with each piece it was harder... After 1am the suitcases were packed, weighed and the rest of the heart stuff was on the floor. Ready for another box to give away - to make others happy with. That was my consolation. Totally exhausted, we drove out of our little street, out of our village onto the motorway towards Munich for the last time.
From burden to happiness
At that moment we had reached our highest level of reducing. Yes, everything fits into 4 suitcases. Yes, one is attached to many things. Yes, it hurts to let go of them. Yes, it is hard to reduce. And YES, it makes it incredibly easy, happy and free!
In retrospect, I can say we could have reduced even further and started with even lighter luggage. Material things are far too important in our lives. We spend a lot of money on them. Which we first have to earn with our lifetime. For us, it was time to reflect on what is really important for life. And what it actually takes in terms of tangible things.
With the decision to start a new life, we have at the same time made the decision to reduce everything from our previous life to the minimum. Even if it is sometimes difficult or - as in the case of selling a house, for example - not everything goes smoothly right away. Our commitment stands: We will go through with our decision and pay our price, no matter what.
Possible questions for your personal journey of discovery:
Can you imagine parting with one or two of your favourite pieces? And what does that do to you?
Do you feel like you are always acquiring more than you are letting go?
What does reducing mean for you? How far does that stretch for you?
Do you need everything you have around you? Does it really do you good?
Possible questions for your personal journey of discovery:
Can you imagine parting with one or two of your favourite pieces? And what does that do to you?
Do you feel like you are always acquiring more than you are letting go?
What does reducing mean for you? How far does that stretch for you?
Do you need everything you have around you? Does it really do you good?
4 responses
Dear Harriet,
What a text!
I'm sitting here, reading your text to Tjibbe and I'm in tears! What a step! I can imagine very well? How much strength it took you!!! Great admiration!!! We are not quite there yet, but we admire you for it!
🤗
Dear Heike,
I was lucky enough to be able to hug and squeeze you live after your comment - also in tears 🥰
Thank you very much for your touching words, even if they came late!
Dear Harriet, Dear Stefan,
I've been following your life on Instagram for some time now with your always so beautiful impressions ..... - simply fantastic! But it takes so much courage to leave everything behind and start from scratch. You have my full respect for that! And yet I secretly think, if only I were as brave and decisive! I think you're doing everything just right and I enjoy following your adventures on Instagram every time. Thank you Harriet for the link to this website. Now I am always informed. Even if I don't always find the time to read your adventures straight away, I know where to find you :-)! Stay healthy and hold on to your dreams! You are doing everything right! Best regards Brigitte
Dear Brigitte,
what lovely words - so nice, thank you very much for that, I am very happy about it!!!
Strange, but honestly: we didn't feel so brave when we made the decision and went through with it... we simply went 100 %, without compromises and back doors, to achieve our goal.
It's wonderful that we know each other and still keep in touch after so many years - always great to hear from you 🙂
Also for you: stay healthy and best regards, Harriet