All that I need to live the life of my dreams is inside of me.

People who emigrate with two suitcases find out which of their possessions were genuinely theirs. The trade, the language, the knack of making friends in a room where nobody speaks yours — none of it had to be declared at customs.

The equipment travels. Taste, attention, patience, the habit of beginning again after something collapses.

Circumstances matter enormously and nobody sensible pretends otherwise. Money, health and luck are not decorations on the outside of a life.

But the portion you carry is the portion that keeps working when the circumstances change, and almost everyone underestimates how much of it there is.