Myth: All I have to do is get organized:
Everything in your house calls to you. There isn’t an item in your house
that isn’t talking to you. It’s saying "clean me, read me, fold me, finish
me, take me to Aunt Jane’s house, answer me, write me" "get your messages,
return this here, take that there"—it’s a din. It may not be possible to
simplify a modern life totally, but to go after a dream, you have to get
that racket down to a murmur. Usually our first reaction is that we have to
get all that stuff organized—but maybe that’s not always a good idea. Let me
tell you a story.
When first got my country place there was a nice old barn
behind the house, full of stuff: gardening things (pots and seed containers
and string etc., etc.), boxes of books, old furniture, light fixtures, and
tools. A lovely old car was right in the middle of everything, a 1961 Chevy,
which the previous owner had always intended to restore.
Every summer, I would go to the country on the weekends,
walk into that huge old barn, and spend all of Saturday trying to organize
the mess—what should go on shelves, what should be Id or given away, what
should be restored. It was an endless job. I usually spend Sunday exhausted
and guilty that I wasn’t still working in the barn.
And then one day, when I was home in the city, the barn
burned to the ground - with all its gardening things, and books, and
fixtures, and tools, and that lovely old car! My first feeling was one of
utter dismay. What a waste. I was stricken, ready to cry.
My second feeling was enormous relief! There was nothing
left to organize. It was gone, along with all the feelings of being
overwhelmed by all that stuff, all the frenzy of hopelessly trying to
maintain control by organizing it.
Every weekend since then I sit on the porch, look out
over the hilIs for a while, then happily read a book. And now the very
obvious truth is right in front of me: there’s only one good reason to go
the country. To relax, not to exhaust myself moving things around that I
shouldn’t own in the first place.
You can extend that lesson to your whole life: for whatever purpose you
were put on this planet, it couldn’t be to organize clutter. Go back to the
Clutter Clearing
Section and keep clicking the links to learn how to get free from the burden
of clutter.
