Be set free to sing or hum along

No. 10 | I feel like I have been on a mission of decluttering for years.  As I consider the details and the calendar, I have in fact been on a mission of decluttering for exactly that, years.  To confess, I do have some packrat tendencies to overcome.   

I read each of the Kondo books.  I read them before there was a Netflix special for binge-watching.  They were recommended to me by a friend.  To that friend, I continue to offer sincere thanks.  

To be sure, I made a lot of speedy progress early on, and I cannot recommend highly enough the effort.  My sock and tee shirt drawers continue to be joyful, tidy little spaces.  I continue to be a folding kingpin, at least around my house.  I am pleased to share that my kids have taken up at least some of these helpful “keep things tidy” habits.   

I must also confess that I still have quite a long way to go.  I have been going through boxes and boxes of things. Junk really. I have been throwing things away like a man fighting like mad against a hoarding instinct.  Funny, as I think of it now, the problem with much of the stuff that I have been going through in the latter parts of this effort has indecision as the underlying problem.  That thought has me thinking not only of the call to Tidy Up but also the call the Get Things Done.  Handle a piece of paper only once and all of that.   

Continue reading “Rediscovering Lost Things”

No. 9 | “If only” is a dangerous and perilous path.  It is a road to nowhere or at least a road to nowhere any of us should want to go.  “If only” may not be a road at all, but more an ever-expanding and deepening hole one digs, the dark bottom from which the climb out seems more and more impossible with each passing day.   

I wish that I did not know what that hole-darkness can feel like.  “If only” is powerlessness.  It is to take up residence in victoms-ville.  It is a place you can go alone for sure. Unfortunately, we often find a community of like-minded sorrow wallowers there with whom to commiserate.  That community if we find it does us no favors.  

To ruminate on the thoughts that tend to accompany these words is to sentence ourselves to continue in whatever discontent in which we find ourselves.  It is a terrible and circular self-fulfilling prophecy, a tail-chasing endeavor. 

Continue reading “If Only”

No. 8 | I am a big proponent of self-improvement.  I have not always been.  I have often referred to myself as the late-bloomer of late-bloomers.  It is a curious thing to look back and wonder at how this perspective change came about.  Looking back, there were many moving parts.  

One experience early on was a comment made in a class that I was taking.  My employer had sent me to this class; the topic was selling.  Early on in my work-life, I worked in sales.  This fellow teaching this class said, “Have any of you heard that old statement, ‘You are earning exactly the amount of money you have decided to earn?’”  Those may not be his precise words, but that was the gist of the statement he made.  

Once he had raised the point, others in the class started talking about a “famous audio piece” by some speaker with an especially memorable voice.  Many of the more seasoned salespeople in the group were familiar with this recording and the idea.  None of them recalled who this speaker was or the name of the talk.  

Nobody in the group spoke out against the idea.  I was likely the youngest in the group, and I did not like the idea being expressed and expounded. I did not like it at all.  I was unsettled, to say the least.  I did not feel that I was earning the amount of money that I had “decided” to earn. 

Continue reading “Self Improvement”