A Letter from Chris Suarez
VERY LITTLE
This past week my family finally moved into our new home. We bought a home on some acreage back in November of 2019 and began a “lite” remodel that turned into a ten month project. It certainly could have been completed much faster, however in those same ten months we launched a new business, bought two other businesses, found ourselves in the middle of a pandemic, experienced a stock market crash and recovery, dealt with city shut-downs, started a podcast, sold a house and acquired a commercial building, and now find ourselves in the midst of state-wide fires. What was going to take 60 or 90 days turned into almost 10 months.
Now, many people at certain points in their financial life look to “move-up”; get a bigger house with more space, more rooms, increase their square footage. In fact, there seems to be a trend to have a different room for any activity you might think to do in your house. You have a room for cooking, and then eating. In fact, at times you have a room for eating breakfast, a room for eating dinner, and even a room for drinking coffee or sipping a cocktail. You have a room to have formal guests in (who invites formal guests over anyway), a room to relax and hang out in, and a room you somehow decided you deserved as a bonus. You have a room to watch TV, a separate room to watch movies, and another room to play games. You have a room for the kids to play in, a room to work out it, a room to do laundry in, a room to wrap gifts in. You have a room to sleep in and seemingly a different room to use the bathroom in every time you need to go. You have a room for your wine, a room for your books, and pretty much an entire room for your clothes. Even every one of your vehicles has their own room. Some of our homes have twenty-something rooms for 3 or 4 people. You could spend every day of the week in a different room and never once be in the same room as a family member.
We opted for the alternative. We opted for an experiential move - with less stuff, less rooms, less house. We decided we wanted the girls to experience what it was like to live in the outdoors - with acres of forest as their back yard, ponds and streams as their side yard, a farm as their front yard, and nature as their playroom. We traded in the theater room for the paddle board. We traded in the third car for the tractor. We traded in the swing set for the chicken coop.
There have been countless lessons learned over the past ten months or so, but probably none as powerful as in the last week. Last weekend I left my family at the coast and drove to our nearly completed new home to meet the movers. I wanted to surprise the girls by moving all of the furniture into the house, unpacking all of the boxes, and getting their rooms all set before they arrived to what would be their new home. Over the course of Friday to Monday I slept a combined 15 hours and worked for about 60 hours to get everything unpacked and set for their arrival. Spending three straight days alone unpacking everything you own leads to a few confirmations:
We need very little to survive.
For every box I unpacked, there was another one I got rid of. When things that you own are packed away in a barn for 10 months without any thought of missing anything in that box, you realize that clearly those items lack any real importance in your life. Shedding 50% of your previous square footage has a very quick way of forcing you to ask yourself if something is important enough to keep or not. I was able to see just how little in our life is necessary in order to survive. I couldn't help but think about one of my favorite books from a few years ago, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. Each time I opened up yet another box I found myself asking, is this essential for us? Which leads me to my second confirmation.
We need very little to be happy.
Very few things in any of those boxes bring real happiness. Sure there were a few toys that my kids loved, that one movie that the girls watch again and again, and maybe even a box too many of art supplies that the girls use for hours on end. But for the most part I could have thrown away any box, never to be opened again, and it would not affect the level of our happiness. Even old photographs were just reminders of times in the past when we were together and happy. In fact, the few things that I did acknowledge contributed to our happiness were all objects or things that could be experienced. The piano allows us to experience music. All of our books allow us to experience learning new things. Our sports and camping equipment allow us to experience new places and spending time together. Which leads me to my third confirmation.
We need very little to live experientially.
Life is meant to be lived experientially. The experiences we have on our own allow us to grow into the people we wish to become. The experiences we have with those that we love allow us to create the environment and relationships that fulfill us. As I unpacked “stuff” that I had forgotten we even owned I thought of the previous ten months. We each had just one bag of clothes and one bag of “stuff” that we lived with for almost a year. Everything else was in storage. We didn't lack for anything. Fewer toys and fewer electronics and fewer things led to us spending even more time together over those ten months. We played more, we hiked more, we biked more, we walked more, we created more, we explored more, and probably talked and laughed more. We were temporarily without a primary residence and we were still able to live experientially. Which leads me to my fourth confirmation.
Doing even very little things for those you care about is incredibly fulfilling.
The 60 hours spent over three and a half days alone unpacking, organizing, discarding, staging, cleaning, recycling, re-organizing, etc seemed like just a few hours. I never once lacked energy to get all then boxes unpacked, the furniture moved, the house cleaned. The thought of the girls arriving to a completed home after months of waiting and months of expectation drove me to keep going and getting the job completed before they arrived. I had a deadline and I was going to hit that deadline. Imagining their surprise and excitement was enough to keep me going…and when they finally walked through the doors on Monday, the previous ten months of work were well worth it.
As I was thinking about these four confirmations earlier this week, little did I know how real they would become. Thousands in the state of Oregon just a few days later would be told to grab whatever they could and whatever was of value to them in one bag or one box and evacuate their homes as fires raged and spread quickly across forests, and towns, and neighborhoods. My family prepared four small bags in case we were told to evacuate the home we had just a couple days earlier moved into. It seemed odd to be packing four bags just 24 hours after unpacking our final box. As of writing this, we are still here at home, unlike so many that have lost their homes around us or have evacuated their home and await news as to what they will be returning to. Of course, a home is experiential, a home has emotions, a home has memories. But it's a good time to remember that those experiences and emotions and memories are built not by the stuff inside of those homes, but rather by the people that live within them.
We need very little to survive. We need very little to be happy. We need very little live experientially. And even in times of uncertainty, doing even very little things for those you care about is incredibly fulfilling.
Chris
