Welcome to Pack Less, Be More

Copyright (C) Ryan Jordan | ryanjordan.com

Just pack less, or just be more, or ... ?

More people try to be more, than to try to pack less.

I wonder if that's not a futile mis-prioritization of things. I wonder if being more is hindered by not packing less.

Packing less means more than carrying a light pack in wild places.

It means much more than that to me, at least:

  1. Packing less means trying to free up more time to give to my family, my community, or social or environmental activism.
  2. Packing less means spending less, so my finances can be reallocated to boosting the quality of life for those less fortunate, or by not giving in to congressional pressures to "stimulate job growth through material spending on useless crap."
  3. Packing less means sleeping more, so I can be more valuable to the people I serve, rather than exhausted from dilution.
  4. Packing less means downsizing, so as to set an example for others that happiness is achieved through less.

You see, I think packing less leads to opportunities to be more. It opens things up. It makes life just a little bit simpler, so you can step back from the junk and see the big picture just a little bit better.

You can be more all you want, without packing less. Good for you, But I can't do it. I have to declutter my time, energy, money, stuff - or I'll never be able to see what more even looks like.

Ryan Jordan is a university system expat and recovering engineering professor. He founded an online magazine and enthusiast community in 2001 (backpackinglight.com) but he spends most of his allocated time as an organizational development consultant with a focus on simplifying business processes and engineered systems. In his spare time, he's a Scout leader, adventurer, speaker, instructor, and wilderness guide. He guides private expeditions in the Northern Rockies by foot, ski, packraft, and tenkara, and was the first licensed guide in the United States focusing exclusively on teaching the tenkara method of fly fishing on Montana's Blue Ribbon trout streams. He has an unusual passion for big trout, but his best friend is still his wife, and they live in Bozeman, Montana. Their summer home is a truck with a canopy and platform bed that rambles up jeep roads into Wild Places in the mountains, where they can still live their dream: a dirtbag lifestyle without their clients, church friends and family finding out.

Visit Ryan online (http://www.ryanjordan.com/), follow Ryan on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/bigskyry), or view his photography at Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigskyry/).