I’m beginning to think maybe I like clutter. I have come to this conclusion because I managed to find ways to stay gone all week and haven’t done one bit of de-cluttering. I don’t think I’ve organized a single thing…including a thought for the entire week. Of course, I have plans to organize things. I always have lots of plans. But my ability to put those plans into action has me feeling a little less than effective these days.
The whole de-cluttering thing is starting to feel like mowing the lawn. You take the time to go out and push the mower around and when you’re done, you can see the results right away. The problem is that in a day or so, you look outside and the grass is there again. In much the same way that the grass grows back and waves at you, begging you to come out and mow again, the stacks of mail, magazines, and toys seem to find their way back into the places where you were just weeding through them. So it becomes a battle of wills. Who will cave first? Will you organize to avoid a catastrophe or will you let the piles climb as high as they can before they simply collapse into a much bigger mess on the floor in front of you? In either case, you lose.
I was reading one of my de-cluttering books the other day while I was waiting at the doctor’s office. I was almost inspired to do a few of the things in the book until I realized that much of what was being done was simply moving your piles of crap to other areas of the house and calling them something different. My magazines would become my idea files and my bookshelf would become my reference library. Could I possibly fake being stupid long enough to convince myself that renaming these things had made a significant difference in my clutter?
As it stands, I have almost thirty days left to get in all of the de-cluttering that I wanted to do this summer. My last day on this project will be August 15th. Barring any unforeseen calamities, I should be able to at least manage to hold a yard sale before that day arrives. If I can’t manage to do that, I shall have to declare this project a failure. I’m not going to make myself feel bad if I do fail. There’s something to be said for making the effort. As a matter of fact, I could just rename my clutter and call it something like “assets” or “valuables.” I’d be stretching the truth, but at least it wouldn’t be “clutter” anymore. I’ll worry about that on August 15th. Whatever will be will be…
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