clutter

Dearest shadow,


In the past few days, instead of preparing ahead for work, I've been doing some spring cleaning in my office. I took down all the crappy stuff. Rearranged my files. I got some stuff from the stationery cupboard. I threw away all the free pens and all the stuff with no ink and replaced them with cheap yet, usable daiso pens. oh and killed two small cockroaches in the process. i am so proud of myself. :)


As I was walking to and fro and throwing stuff away,(the rubbish bin is actually quite far away...) I remembered why I kept them in the first place. Last year, keeping those things was almost mandatory. I might have someone come up to me and ask me to produce them. I held on to unneccessary stuff 'just in case'.


It took me close to a year to get rid of all these unwanted and unnecessary possessions. While I was hanging unto all this stuff, I felt burdened by them and yet, I did not really feel it. Everytime I looked at it, i'd be reminded of mean lady and her bullying. I'd think that mean lady's best buddy might pop in and ask me about my work plans any minute.


It was only when I threw them away that I realised how burdened I was. How badly I was bullied and of course more importantly, the huge impact of the things we surround ourselves with. It felt so liberating. Light. and almost like i'm telling those stuff 'hah! you've lost your control and power over me....muahahaha.'


maybe having less possessions does set you free. maybe less is more. and maybe these objects can actually take a toll on our health, wealth and general well being. I've heard many theories that objects have their own energies and our use of them imprints those energies unto them. I remember reading somewhere that the effect of clutter on our lives can cause us to go into a downward spiral. I knew that it had an effect but i simply reduced it's magnitude because i convinced myself that i knew better.



but it's so true....you get tired of cleaning the clutter...so you don't clean and you get new stuff and it just keeps piling on. then you feel overwhelmed about everything and of course, there'll be people who'll be there to add to your mess. but then, you can find everything in your mess. you don't lose things and you have adapted all your routines to revolve around your mess. your mess grows. your habit becomes ingrained. your mom or insert-nagging-person-here starts to complain and you retaliate. why should i clean? it works for me. I NEED THIS. or I might need this in the future. This was given to me by a certain someone...whose last name i don't know.


you're exhausted. you sleep with your mess. and you live in your mess. sigh.



I've been living with other people's mess for a long time. ever since I was 12, i've been living with clutter in my room. it gets cleaned for a while. then it just comes back again. I'm tired. I ask myself why i should bother cleaning up my mess when it's MY room. I've always had a room. i live in my room and i should be allowed to keep it moderately messy. but the floors and windows and other stuff is clean what.


I guess the lesson I have to learn from this that 1) I have acquired the concept of object permanence at the age of 2. If the object is gone, it does not mean that the memories associated with it are gone. It simply means that it's there somewhere but it's not there to remind you of it each time you see it. Meaning that, I should throw away things that cause me anxiety, pain and emotional baggage to linger around.


2) I can actually make do without many things. For example, I can make do without my work plans. I can plan in my head and for as long as i do not need to show someone all my stuff, I can feed the recycling bin! Less is more in some cases BUT, (i'm going to contradict myself) it does you no harm to have 5 rulers. Rulers are really beautiful stationery. They are so diverse that it can be a hobby. but yes, i digress.


3) I cannot allow myself to compromise my organisation just because someone else has chosen my room as their storage space. I cannot tell myself that if they can treat me badly, I can treat myself badly too. I will aim to keep my space moderately clutter free and organised for my own well being. no one else can do it for me and i will ignore other people's clutter...it's not my problem. not my emotional baggage and does not really affect me. no matter how tired i am, i don't tell myself that i will not brush my teeth or something....so that means that i should make some effort from time to time to keep my clutter under control.


I think I need to ask myself more real questions. as to why i hang on to little stuff. and why i have a 'just in case' reason for holding onto things. i know that it's not because i don' t want to waste money replacing something. maybe its just the anxiety of not being prepared for something or being inconvenienced.


i need to let go. maybe letting go of all these unnecessary material possessions will make me feel light and happy.........light and happy seems like a good combination. good enough to motivate me to dive into my mess.


that means a relaunch of room cleaning- phase 1 and lots of "motivational" chocolates. :)