I think everyone in this group is familiar with the late
comedian George Carlin most famous routines, and it is one we can all
identify.
“That's all you need in life, a little place for
your stuff. That's all your house is- a place to keep your stuff. If you didn't
have so much stuff, you wouldn't need a house. You could just walk around all
the time. A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it. You can see that
when you're taking off in an airplane. You look down, you see everybody's got a
little pile of stuff. All the little piles of stuff. And when you leave your
house, you gotta lock it up. Wouldn't want somebody to come by and take some of
your stuff. They always take the good stuff. They never bother with that crap
you're saving. All they want is the shiny stuff. That's what your house is, a
place to keep your stuff while you go out and get...more stuff! Sometimes you
gotta move gotta get a bigger house. Why? No room for your stuff anymore.”
Each year I make it a goal to go through my desk and closet
to clear out “my stuff” but I discover that as soon as I take a carload of items
to donate or my storage unit, it is almost always immediately replaced with
what? More stuff!
It can be depressing because at the time I feel
great. I’ve accomplished something, but
give me a couple of weeks or if I’m lucky a month or two, I feel like I’ve been
defeating. My clutter, also known as organized chaos, can be disorganized. It can be overwhelming and cause stress.
Over the last several years, I have discovered that my
clutter isn’t just physical. It is the
overwhelming amount of files on my computer.
It is the pings every few minutes from text messages or social media
notifications. It is my to-do list of
items floating around in my head. All of
these things are items that compete for my attention forming a digital clutter
just like the physical clutter. My brain
doesn’t get a chance to fully process things.
With all that being said, I have been witness to Kira
getting frustrated enough to cause an anxiety attack leading to a glitch fest
because she can’t find something. Sometimes
I can locate the item she is looking for and calms her down. Other times she is determined to find the
item herself.
I have set a goal to focus on one room a month to
downgrade the clutter. It won’t be an
easy process but I think it will be beneficial to our overall mental
state.
