How I carried my home around for a year

and why pliability benefits your changemaking | On home | Part 1

“Where are you from?”

Traveling for my book tour these past weeks tripped some wires around this benign question.

Those aware of less than neat answers don’t tend to ask this in the throw-away manner of,  “How are you?”  Those who do aim to signal affability and expect simple answers that trace one’s moral and socio-political roots to a singular spot on the planet.  I always disappoint them.

I have moved countries eight times.  Held three citizenships.  For years, described myself as the loneliest person I knew.  And — the subject of this post  —  for a year+, reduced “home” to a suitcase.

Image credit: azeret33 for Pixabay under Creative Commons license

My reconning with the concept of “home” is not unique. I suspect some of you — whether military brats or the globally mobile army fighting for social and environmental justice — would relate.  What I hope is that the insights I drew from conducting an experiment on myself — giving up a home when I finally had it — can help all of us become the best changemakers we can be.

Let me be clear:  while I was literally homeless — I had no home or address — I was not forced into that choice or lived on the street.

Spun from rituals , community, and cherished objects, a home finally held me in its gentle embrace

It was 2012. Having established myself in Melbourne, Australia I had started my consulting practice Vivit and turned 30 surrounded by friends.

Within an acceptable radius for a cycle commute,  I had chosen St Kilda (a Melbourne suburb) and found a modern spacious apartment.  Having always lived ready to move, I was buying things that stayed put, like artwork and fabulous wine glasses.  I had a group of friends who assumed we’d spend weekends together.  The local farmers markets, yoga studio, and remedial massage wove into a routine.  

For the first time since I was a kid in Moscow, I felt at home.

I was so content that I did not want a single thing to change.   And that — once it sunk in — compelled me to change everything.

Within weeks, I got rid of all possessions that didn’t make it into a single suitcase and embarked on living without a home for what amount to more than a year.

Why did I give it all up? What made it onto my shortlist of kept possessions? What was that like? Would I do it again? Should you try, and what might that look like for you?

Carving out my niche in transformation, I was a leading workplace change strategist. 

We were asking people who had, for their entire careers, sat at desks propped by bulging filing drawers and covered with clutter to shift to modern ways of working.  In part because of my efforts, thousands of people were experiencing laptops for the first time and getting used to storing their belongings in lockers while we — ever so gently — were starting to talk about going paperless. Being the first person who most could name to do just that, I modeled what we asked others to try, sharing in both the discomfort and the benefits.  Succumbing to the gravity of my own risk-free life’s comforts started to make me feel like a fraud while I was asking people to trust me in jumping off their proverbial ledges.

            My own living arrangements were also creating tension.