I watched a really interesting documentary this week highlighting the problems being faced by ‘Virunga’, a National Park in the African democratic republic of Congo. I would recommend watching it (available on Netflix) so I won’t go in to detail, but watching the difficult scenes of an emergency evacuation of the local people made me consider the importance of our material possessions. Women were hurrying along with a child tied to both their front and back, and with a small basket of possessions on their heads; men ran towards the trucks clutching a lone suitcase which held all their worldy goods; and a child carried a small box containing a beloved chicken. If you had to drop everything right now and run out the door, possibly never to return, what would you grab?

For me the answer would be: my photo albums, my external hard drive and my cat! Everything else is replaceable and what really matters are the things and memories that mean something to you and are completely irreplaceable. With these 3 things I could rebuild a life without having lost anything important. Sometimes it’s worth thinking about what really matters…