wednesday words: stuff

the first in hopefully many wednesday posts about life lessons.

i'm sure if you're reading this blog, you probably know that since ben and i became mr. and mrs., we've moved. A LOT. (some of you are laughing, agreeing that this is an understatement!) we've moved more than most couples we know probably ever will).

we've lived in 3 different countries, 5 different homes, and 4 different places. we now consider ourselves pros at packing. :) while that definitely can be fun, it can also be pretty challenging, and sometimes hard to put down roots, never knowing how long we're going to be in one place.

one of the lessons i've definitely learned over the all our moves during the last 6 years is:

STUFF IS JUST STUFF

as you can imagine, we've gone through our share of "stuff" during all our moves. when we very first moved to japan, we could only bring about half of our stuff. wedding presents that we had just received stayed in boxes in my parents basement, knowing that we wouldn't have a very big place there, and we didn't want to bring too much.
as i packed for our first overseas move, i really had to ask myself "is this important to me? can i live without this for 3 years?"
stuff takes on a different feel when you have to look at it that way. there are many things that remained in storage for those 3 years that i didn't miss one little bit and that didn't make the next move with us. something that's been SO helpful is to remind myself that "stuff is just stuff". our stuff does not (and should not!) define who we are.

yes - we all have stuff that we love, stuff we hold onto, stuff we think we can't do without, but you'd be surprised what you really can do without. this last year in the bahamas, we packed the littlest amount of our stuff in all our moves to date, and our place was absolutely the smallest of any place we've had. it was basically the size of a hotel room. we did without most of our things, and whatever we brought with us was what could fit in a car. while that was certainly a challenge, it was also kind of freeing to not be tied to too much "stuff". something i've discovered is that friends that have lived in one place or who haven't left america don't always understand this mentality because i have observed that america is all about STUFF. how much or how big or how fancy your stuff is.

ever since i've met my husband, he has not been attached to stuff. when we moved him from maryland to my parents house for the month before our wedding, all the things he had to his name fit in the backseat of my car. i've always had more stuff than him (he would certainly agree, i'm sure) :) and he has taught me so much in regards to this issue too, and his perspective has helped me adopt the "stuff is just stuff" mentality.

basically, the lesson is this: stuff doesn't matter. it's just stuff. don't let it tie you down and don't let your worth be caught up in your stuff. it's not going to last past this life anyways. do your best to let go of things that you're holding on to a little too tightly and use your stuff to bless others as much as you can. (that's a whole other lesson for a different day).

i think that if we can adopt this mentality and focus more on the people around us rather than things, we'll all be a little better off. :)