If you have, through your hard work and perseverance, managed to amass so much material stuff that it prevents you from dropping everything you are doing and going on a great adventure, your life has become too big to fail.
And just like with banks, that’s a bad thing.
You’ve all thought it before. That you’d love to drop everything and cycle across North America, or backpack across Europe, or downhill ski in every timezone, or sail around the world, or whatever. Maybe it’s as tame as that ubiquitous fantasy – starting your own business. We’ve all thought about how great that would be. How rewarding. And then what happens?
You start thinking about what it would mean to actually do it. You’d have to give up your job. And that would really hurt your career, right? And then there’s the mortgage. How would you pay that? And you just bought a shiny new A3 that has another 59 payments. They’re not going to happen by themselves, are they.
If you have so much stuff that it stops you from being able to live every day of your life, then you have too much stuff. Time to pare down, and get rid of some stuff.
How important is your career, really? More important than living a meaningful life? How much would your career be hurt if you actually took a year off?
Is your house so important it cannot be replaced? What about that car? Your computer? iPhone? Bike? Is any of it important?
Don’t be too big to fail. Own your stuff. Don’t let it own you.