What I want in my backpack

As conversant as I've been with the minimalist world, you'd think I might have achieved some level of minimalism by now.

Far from it. I've rid myself of lots of things, moved a lot of stuff from my house into a storage unit (then cleaned out the storage unit), weeded out clothes and sentimental items and packed and re-packed and sorted and re-sorted and condensed and compressed...and I still have too much stuff.

But I think I've finally arrived at the point of seeing what it is that I want to keep.

Maybe that's a better place to be - knowing what I want, instead of what I don't want. Maybe minimalism suffers from too much focus on the negatives, instead of focusing on the core, letting the extraneous fall away. Maybe the exertion of getting rid of stuff is too exhausting, while the exercise of choosing your foundation is freeing and invigorating.

Maybe, rather than minimalism or enough-ism or appropriatism or whatever-ism, we should just know what we want.

Forget the major house-cleaning and de-cluttering and tips and tricks and so on and so forth. Find what you like, hone in on that, and trust the rest to take care of itself. Focus on the core of what you want and value.

Or go back to de-cluttering.

--

So here's what I want in my backpack.