Have you ever counted up everything in your life? I mean, everything you possess, everyone you know, every memory.

It is an interesting exercise and one, I think, that each of us should perform ever so often. It is a bit like counting your blessings, only more so.

When it comes to the things in your house - office, vehicles, garage, barn, outbuildings - do you think you could even do it? How many dozens of things would you simply not remember you had if you actually had to sit somewhere else and think of them?

On reflecting on this exercise, I have come to believe that if you absolutely do not remember an item, it is time to give it away to someone who might enjoy it.

There are wonderful stores in Orangeville, Shelburne and the Caledon area which are happy to recycle your goods and use the money they bring to promote good causes. Imagine moving next week and then think how much of the stuff in your home, garage, etc., would wind up in a yard sale.

Papers and books are at once the biggest burden and the greatest joy.

I moved hundreds of books and pounds of letters, old school records and so much more back and forth across the ocean when I shifted my parents' estate to the United Kingdom where I was living and then back again when I returned to live here, simply because they were of such huge sentimental value that I did not want to part with them.

Every time that I carried the back-breaking weight of boxes of books, I thought of my own ambition to add to them with works of my own and laughed at myself (without, I hasten to add, diminishing the ambition at all).

I also, in a single thought, wondered why and understood why we hang on to very volume, however much work they are to shift - old books, handled by dozens of people, befriending them all alike with the benevolence of journeys at one and the same time witnessed and experienced.

And letters! Do you keep old letters or is your life completely dominated by the much less interesting and impersonal printed sheets of e-mail? Or worst, is all your personal correspondence stored electronically where an electrical whimsy could wipe them all out?

Old letters are such a pleasure to read, like rewinding a conversation, a solid reminder of other times.

I had the letters that my grandmother's mother wrote to her early in the 20th Century and the soldiers' view of the Second World War in the letters my grandfather and my uncle sent back from Europe when they were stationed there.

There was also the whole of my correspondence with my mother while I spent years travelling and living overseas, which were a standing record of our lives.

If you have something similar in your files, make sure you spend the occasional rainy afternoon reading them. They are your own history and, in my case, one that went back four generations.

In your mind, take a walk around your life once in a while. Wander back through your own history and reminisce about a specific afternoon, a hilarious moment, a picnic, a silly dog, a school friend.

Then turn your mind to this moment in your life and assess your situation. Check your emotional pulse and ask yourself if there is more of value that you might do and less dashing that you need to inflict upon yourself. Add up how much time you are spending having fun, laughing, calling your friends and family. Never lose touch.

A film company once made a documentary about me, which mystified me a bit but they insisted they wanted to.

It was for a series called Second Time Around, Making it Work. It still airs from time to time. However much I failed to understand why they included me, since the tenet of their series was about women who had suffered a loss and had bounced back (which I had, a couple of times), mainly as community leaders (which I was not, particularly), I did take advantage of the filming to make my basic philosophy of life clear to whomever would listen. None of it matters - not what you own, how many languages you speak, what your position is, how much money you make; none of it means a thing if you are not using it, at least partly, to benefit others and if you are not having any fun.

Perhaps because I believe this, whenever I am knocked down I am irrepressibly optimistic about my ability to bounce back.

Loss is regretted, there is no denying that, and, in some ways, forever. On the other hand, some day (soonish), the snow will melt, the spring will come and, as Scarlet O'Hara was fond of saying, "Tomorrow is another day!"

And I plan to live it as fully as is my wont.