Here's what I mean: I am currently reading a book on de-cluttering your house, and, by extension, your life. It asserts that most clean-up plans are really just storage solutions that rely on grit and determination to maintain. There's no storage solution that's user-friendly enough to keep my mail from piling up, or my laundry from getting crazy, or my makeup from re-distributing itself about the house. Still other plans that do emphasize purging belongings, it says, only scratch the surface in purging that which is trash, or that which you do not want. Yet another idea that it debunks is the idea that we need to de-clutter as a new, gradual, daily discipline: emptying a closet at a time over months, or purging a bag of stuff a week, or continuously de-cluttering important surfaces. It reminded me (and I'm fairly certain this book was written as a personal letter to me) that those who have sufficient discipline to defeat clutter this way have sufficient discipline to never have been cluttered in the first place. 100% accurate-- if I had it in me to keep up with this plan, I wouldn't be in this mess (literally, ha).
What, then, does the book offer as a solution? Rather than getting rid of what we don't want, we keep only what we do want. Which seems redundant, but think about it-- a room of stuff is probably a third stuff that has meaning and value and purpose in our lives, and a third stuff we'd readily get rid of by some means or another (sell/toss/donate). But that middle third is made up of stuff we keep for other reasons, which can include fizzled plans, big intentions, guilt, duty, misunderstood need, lament... regret.... the art project we didn't start, the papers we mean to file properly, the books we hope to read, the gifts people gave us that we wouldn't have bough ourselves, things that cost a lot but never found their place, things you thought you wanted at the time, things you meant to fix but replaced, things that aren't quite used up... the list goes on and on. Essentially, it's the things you feel you ought to keep. None of that, in her words, sparks joy (or any other positive emotional response). This is the mass of items that makes the difference, based on her philosophy. It is what is kept in most cleanup efforts, and what causes the re-appearace of clutter after a short time, and what her method says must go. To the gradual de-clutter plan, she counters that this effort must all be done in one go in order to successfully de-clutter once and for all.
I feel like I now know why there isn't a solution or system or unpronouncable IKEA shelving unit in the world that can rein in my clutter for more than a week. It's that middle third of stuff-- it fills the drawers and cubbies and cabinets and bins, and it leaves no room for the things that get used and ultimately left around.
What does that have to do with what's weighing on me? Everything. It relates to my dwelling on the past, and limiting my future success based on my past failure. It is the box of regret that's been sitting in my dining room for months.
In a brief but determined cleanup effort over the weekend (spurned on by a chapter of reading), I came upon a box that put a lump in my throat and a burn in the bottom of my stomach-- an entire month of un-used, still good, could change my life if only I was determined enough Medifast food. I knew it was there, and I've felt it staring at me all this time-- it was filled with somedays, eventuallys, why didn't I succeed's, why did I fail's, why have I never's, and why can't I ever's. When I closed it up, I didn't realize I'd packed all of that in there, along with my sense of potential and hopes and dreams. For all my studying and investing in real, whole nutrition and healthy ways to lose weight, I always think "yeah, but if I could just go back on Medifast, that would be easier, and I already spent the money." But then I don't want to do that (for many reasons), so this box stops me out every time-- like the fact that it was still there and still "good" kept me from fully trying anything else. So I could either go ahead and do it, and endure the brittle hair and nails, the gastrointestinal distress, and the exhaustion; or I could leave it there to make me feel inferior; or I can get rid of it.
So I'm getting rid of it.
I'm not saying it's a bad system, or that it doesn't work, or that others shouldn't try it: it has changed and saved lives. I'm not even saying that it definitely is not my solution-- I may well end up going back to Medifast one day-- who can know? But this box, right now, today, is serving only to keep me from growing and moving forward. Until I deal with it one way or another, I will be stuck exactly where I am. It sparks no joy, and clutters my mind and my heart and my life. If I ever come back to Medifast, it will be with a new box with new potential, that hasn't been packed with regret and broken hope.
As for now, this box has served it's role in my life and we both need to move on.
Makes me think of Hebrews 12:1, and throwing off that which entangles us-- sins and failures that hold us back from running with endurance. And also this:
Philippians 3:13-14New American
Standard Bible (NASB)
13 Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it
yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching
forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the
goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Obviously, this speaks of Godly living in the freedom of our redemption in Christ, but it sure sounds applicable to me.
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