Declutter to Save the World!
My house is a mess. My garage is worse. My clothes closet is…. Well, let’s put it this way: it dangerous. I am at the point where not only is clutter an eyesore but my nerves are fraying too. Yes, clutter makes anxiety worse. Yes, clutter stresses us all. Yes, clutter is a sign of ill health, ageing and mental health issues. And yes, it is part of our climate change & environmental theme. Why? Well, “stuff” & the energy to make & move it, is what causes all the pollution destroying our beautiful planet. So does that mean you & I are part of the problem? Sadly, yes. That’s the bad news. The good news is that you & I are thus also part of the solution. What do we do? Declutter! Minimize! Have less but live more.
Let’s start with the mental health view of decluttering. Clutter, whether it be old socks thrown on a coach, or emotional clutter that means we are never satisfied, or mental clutter that makes us unable to think about the long term implications of our choices are all signs that our mental health is not as good as it should be. Recently I have been on edge and easily overwhelmed. I overreact – seeing small issues as insurmountable challenges. I have looked at the long list of tasks I need accomplish with dread instead of with joy. A family member even recommended I start on anti anxiety pills because I just wasn’t that pleasant to be around anymore. Am I like this because of clutter? Absolutely! All my life I have prided myself on not being bothered by a little bit of a mess… but now my “little” mess has got out of control and I am swimming in stuff and it is drowning me! Did I recognize this? Of course. I took action in the Spring and put out so much “stuff” on the road that our neighbours thought we were moving! Did that help – yes… a bit. But the fact is that was only a fraction of what we need to get rid of. But the rot lies deeper than just having extra shirts, pots and furniture that is not needed. I have had to admit that the “stuff” is an accurate reflection of my state of mind and emotional balance. What does all my “stuff” tell me about my mind and heart? They are clogged up – ready for an emotional and intellectual heart attack. Let’s not kid ourselves, getting older is all about getting clogged up – whether it be the arteries in our bodies our thought patterns in our heads. We get “stuck” and don’t change and grow as much as we did when we were young. This “clogging up” of our lives will eventually kill us – unless we declutter!
Now that I am finally taking decluttering my life seriously I am noticing a strange side effect: I see more of the positive opportunities in our current crises rather than the negative doom and gloom. Yes, things are a mess – but that is normal. My room gets messy. What do I do? Whine about it? Complain that it’s not fair? No. I just clean it up. So it is with the messy, cluttered world we have created. Recognizing that we are in a mess is OK, as long as we see that it just gives us the great opportunity to clean it up: to declutter! Our climate and environmental disasters are only disasters if they overwhelm us to the point that we do act. That is why we must declutter our lives – to give us the bandwidth to act upon the bigger mess around us. My experience has been that if I can clean up my mess and declutter my life I see that the same energy can now be directed to the much bigger global problems. My decluttered heart and mind are no longer overwhelmed when I hear news of Greenland melting or Woodland Caribou population plunging. Instead, I feel and think: time to have less stuff, time to be happy with experiences rather than “stuff”, time to save the world by decluttering the way we live…. One old T shirt at a time. One bad politician at a time. One long jet trip cancelled at a time. One less steak at a time.
So, dear friends, what can you do to save the world? Declutter your life! Then your smiles and energy will give you the strength to tackle the bigger challenges. Even better, when your emotions are decluttered people will recognize it and want to work with you because you are now just a great guy/gal to be with. So, go ahead, be brave and declutter!
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