Essential versus simplify…when the procrastination drops and we finally move forward in the way of bringing to the stage an unforgettable spring cleaning, the decision to save or toss out can affect your present as well as your future. How are you ensuring the important things?
Discovering what’s essential is the difficult part. Once completely in focus, you’re just seconds away from the pleasure filled clunks, crashes and heave ho squishes to make room for more.
Author Leo Babauta has the perfect visual, “How do you carve a statue of an elephant? Just chip away everything that doesn’t look like an elephant.”
The key to winning when spring cleaning is taking the time to ask yourself and others in the family, “Is this essential enough to keep?” You probably do it everyday when emailing! Do you need to keep it or toss it? Keep too much and that evil message comes up, “You’ve have exceeded the limits given to you…please contact your supervisor.”
Leo says, “Put the horse before the cart.” Identify quickly what the essentials are.
I’m not a junk collector but I do believe manmade items have feelings. I refuse to throw out a bent screwdriver, unused plastic flowers, old albums and cassettes and radio station jackets dating back nearly thirty years. Call me a freak; I’m either co-dependent is a sick way or my blood father running out on his family when I was three taught me to never quit anything.
So how do I deal? I sure don’t live in a mansion and I’m far from being junked up and out. You’ve got to be honest with yourself and pop the questions!
What are your values? Think of the qualities and principals you want to live by. Once you identify them, everything you do follows.
What are your goals? What do you want to achieve in life? I spent an entire childhood begging the higher powers to let me be in radio’s hall of fame. Trust me, time to throw it all away! Know what you are achieving and the stacks of books, letters and old cologne or perfume bottles find a happier location through recycling.
What do you love? Love plays a major role in your decision to toss out what’s keeping you from a clean closet. By letting go of a child’s first love for his career, it’s allowed me to locate newer shapes of love such as watching deer from a backyard deck I designed or vividly and impatiently waiting for a single rose to pop its bud into working mode to expose its array of magic. Clutter clogs your passion to live, how close are you to having a manmade junk attack?
What is important to you? Make a list of what gathers the most strength in your life putting positive energy in the areas you’re constantly thinking about.
Of all the items you’ve collected and can’t decide what to toss…what’s made the biggest impact? I once worked with a radio morning man who openly admitted that he never got into the act of saving his path, “Life is about being free not collecting particles of a past you can’t change.”
Needs versus wants. What do you physically need and how does it compare to what you want? Needs stay…wants are given the pink slip.
Putting trust in discovering your true essentials is the key to winning the cleaning war. I can’t tell you why guys find pleasure in hording rugged and torn T-shirts, whether it collects memories or moths, the end result is it’s his…and it’s up to him to rid the chapters of an item not seen as important enough to others to keep. Invading ones personal space is a disaster waiting to happen. When it does, simply tell yourself, everything currently take place is going to end up on a nighttime 30 minute sitcom. You aren’t alone!
I personally love the tubes of acrylic paint that have blended through this brush touching that brush. On the outside, a passerby is quick to say, “What a wretched color…trash it!” I have radio scripts signed by famous musical artists and professional sports players…a pair of once white tennis shoes that have been signed by some of the biggest stars from the 90’s. I did it to be different and kept it to collect it and in the end…if I were to pass today you’d hear someone say, “Holy cow…I’d ask you to get a life but man you’re already dead.”
The spirit of cleaning isn’t just held in the spring. It should be monthly, weekly and hourly. Learning to tell yourself, “No!” keeps the front door a welcoming place. It shows respect to not only to the true person you are but being less overloaded invites every reason to constantly be ready for change.
Steal my art…
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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