IMPEDIMENTUM from the LATIN

The Senatus PopulusQue Romanum, the Senate and the people of Rome used a word...IMPEDIMENTUM...meaning "crap you had to haul around with you." We use the word today, Impediment, which means "gets in your way." When Roman soldiers went to war, they had to carry things with them to support their mission...armor, weapons, food, shelter, water, etc. A soldier could not just "go home" at night when his Phalanx had Crossed the Rubicon and have Mrs. Quintus Aurelius make him a sandwich. They needed things on their journey. Because they had to "Schlepp" all this with them day after day, year after year, they only took things that were absolutely essential, or that couldn't be found or pillaged at their destination. They accepted a reasonable well thought out IMPEDIMENTUM.

This is a metaphor for each of our lives. We drag things along with us, both material and emotional, all our lives. Things we had as children, or when we had an office, or whatever. We hold onto it as is it were NOT an IMPEDIMENT to our progress. It would be like the Roman soldier dragging his vineyard and stable behind him on a wagon. Not much use in battle. Clutter, Hoarding, Mental and Emotional Baggage... none of this sounds too appealing and yet we do not purge it.

In our modern times, we buy things we "have to have" that special purse, or shoes, electronic gizmo, and then we have to maintain it, insure it, store it. We build bigger closets in bigger houses to keep things we no longer use. We may think about them with some level of guilt, like I do about the swimming pool that needs weekly maintenance and we NEVER use. But that just produces more mental clutter to go along with the physical type. It snowballs and pretty soon, our things own us, and our worry and stress over whether our things will be stolen, or lost, takes over. The same applies to the non-material parts of our lives. Purge and de-clutter and the journey becomes easier. Just ask Quintus Aurelius.