Category Archives: Hoarding

Lesson Four: Order is Important

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Everyone is different.  Some people may thrive on chaos and lack of scheduling.  Those people aren’t me. Maybe it is the mathematician in me, but I like order, I like planning, and I thrive on having a schedule.  That doesn’t mean I am not adventurous or spontaneous, because I am certainly both of those things.  There is lots of room in my life for flexibility and changing plans.  But I enjoy the planning also.

One of the things I have been most influenced by on this year of self-discovery, is coming to understand that I like things orderly in my life.  I like to get up at the same time every day, even on the weekends, I meditate, make my bed, exercise, and then make coffee.  Every day.  If I don’t, I am kind of floundering all day long, and nothing seems to get accomplished. It is like I didn’t shut yesterday off and I am still in it.  I have to have a way to start my day with a routine, no matter where in the world I am. It works for me. It is kind of like resetting my life to a new day.  The mistakes of yesterday are past, today I am starting anew.  I reset my compass and then embrace the new day.

I also have realized that, although I am not a neat freak, I like order in my environment.  As I start owning more possessions again, it makes me anxious.  I am looking forward to having a house of my own again, at the same time, I am terrified of having to purchase furniture and decorate it.  Clutter makes me crazy.  There is peace in order.  There is peace in having a small amount of possessions so that I know what I have and where everything is when I am looking for it. At least that is true for me.

One of the major lessons I have learned this year is that I want my life to be about simplicity  That goes for the amount of possessions I own as well as where I end up deciding to live.  When I lived in a high rise condo, it made my life difficult for the things I love to do.  Just getting my bikes out was a huge chore.  They were either in the storage unit or in the middle of my living room on the 7th floor and we weren’t allowed to take them in the elevator.  Thus every time I rode, which was every day, it was this ordeal.  It took a huge commitment on my part. Same with skiing, kayaking, etc.  I want my life to be simple.  I want a garage where I can work on my own gear, a small townhouse where I don’t have to do yard work but with outdoor space where I can have a container garden.  Someplace that is easy to access the roads l love to ride, the water I love to paddle, and the mountain I love to ski on.  I haven’t found it yet, but I am closer.

This year I learned that I want to spend less time and resources of my life taking care of “stuff” and have more to devote to taking care of myself and the people I love.  Every day I want to practice mindfulness, letting go of attachment, reducing suffering (my own and others) and increasing happiness. I want my life to be about kindness and compassion.  For me, I can’t do any of those things from a cluttered environment filled with a bunch of unnecessary stuff, and that includes both physical things as well as intellectual and emotional ones.

So I have this cleared out life.  I cleared out my physical possessions, challenged the places where I was emotionally stuck, and got a new job to challenge myself intellectually.  Now, how do I put the pieces back together again in a way that is conducive to how I want to live the last 1/3 of my life?  That is the question.

Something old, something new…

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I had two times this week that my mind was blown.

Even though I am 50 years old and not a “digital native”, I am still pretty competent in the use of technological tools.  I am a “digital immigrant”, meaning that I remember a time before mainstream digital devices when communication was primarily face-to-face, via telephone, or handwritten letters. So even though I can use technology, I find that interacting with younger “digital natives” helps me to understand new social and emotional paradigms for using those technologies.

From some internet discussion forums I belong to, I know that real friendship can grow from online communities where people never have met in person.  I have met some of my most trusted friends online. And it isn’t just that we established a friendship online, that happens all the time, it is that we maintain friendships in a online space. That is a powerful shift in human interactions.  But until the other night, what I had never considered is that intimate relationships in the digital age can also be sustained online.

The other night I went to a goodbye party for my friend Kare who lives in Germany now.  He came to the states to snowboard and on his last night here we met for beer. I had a great conversation with Rachel, a woman Kare had worked with when he worked in the US and she gave me a perspective shift on intimate relationships that I had never considered.  Rachel is in her mid 30s so just on the cusp of the “digital divide”. Rachel is the definition of a strong, confident, independent woman who has a stable job, disposable income, and is emotionally secure in who she is.  We recognized pretty quickly that we are kindred spirits. Commiserating over beer at a local German bar in Seattle, we both described the same challenges for dating in Seattle. The Seattle dating scene (Dateless in Seattle) is pretty well documented and some even blame the tech factor for it.  Rachel had a different idea about technology

We were complaining that we meet men, either in person or through online dating, that say they want a “strong, confident, independent woman”… until they actually meet one.  That is when they realize that they really want a ball of fluff that is waiting for them to come home so she can fix them a sandwich and get them a beer.  Yeah, that isn’t gonna happen in my world or apparently Rachel’s either.  Rachel said to me, “Robin, you are not going to find a real man in Seattle, you have to go east coast”.  To which I replied that I have a job and can’t move to the east coast right now. She said, you don’t have to move, just use technology.  Then she told me her boyfriend lives in Pennsylvania and they have no intention of changing that situation any time soon.  They talk online daily and fly to see each other regularly. Her philosophy is that, in the 21st century, relationships can be defined differently than how we traditionally have thought of them. I sat there blinking at her with the owl stare because she had just rocked my world.  Wait a second, I thought…Intimate relationships can also be fostered online?  Mind = blown.  That totally opens the dating pool up to a wider spectrum. An interesting shift in perspective that I need to think about more. Thanks Rachel!

1796702_610644625682982_709339069_nLater in the week, my roommate and I threw our first small house party with a few ski friends. I have to say, it was great just interacting with them again. Between laughing over Cards Against Humanity to watching the Boy Dance Party SNL skit, I Iaughed hard enough that my sides hurt and I realized how much I have missed them and love their company.  At the end of the night, my roommate and I were cleaning up and I noticed that she had used an antique plate that belonged to her grandmother to serve food. When I questioned her about it, she said “what is the point of having it if it doesn’t get used?”.  Again mind = blown.  I was reminded of why I gave up all my stuff. The thing I realized this week is that the possessions aren’t the problem, it is the fact that for many people, they don’t use what they have.  They keep the good candle, china, lingerie, clothes, or whatever it is they have in storage for a “special occasion”.  Well, today is special.  You woke up, you are reading this blog, you are alive.  Celebrate.  Break out the good _______ (fill in the blank with whatever you have hoarded away). Use it.  Light candles, buy flowers, eat the good chocolate, and invite people over that you haven’t seen in awhile. Why?  Well because it is Monday that is why.  You don’t need a reason to live and love your life or to cultivate friendships.  Cultivate those friendships like you cultivate a garden, friendship is food for your soul.

So this week I learned from something old and something new.  Maybe next week, I will learn from something borrowed and something blue.  I never know where life’s lessons are coming from, I just try to be open to whatever I am learning.  Have a great week.

For these things, we are thankful…

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Tomorrow morning will mark exactly a week since I packed my remaining possessions in my car and turned over the keys to my apartment. In that week, I have realized that I kept too much stuff. I drive a small SUV and had to put the seats down flat to fit everything in the back. Yesterday, I cut that amount in half. I think tomorrow, I might cut it in half again.

It is amazing how little we really need. But what was more shocking for me to realize was that all those things I held onto because “I might need them someday” were not only cluttering up my life, they were affecting my ability to let go of the past and move on. Even more profoundly revealing was the idea that many of those items could be used by someone who actually DOES need them right now, not just some hypothetical day in the future. And that person will have to go buy that same item. So now, I have an item that I am not using and there is another identical item that had to be produced, an item that used up more of the planet’s resources and another person’s financial resources to purchase it. All the while, the item sat in my home, unused, unneeded and taking up space. If we really want to save the planet and help our fellow man, we have to start by not hoarding stuff.

I also realized how easy it is, with all that stuff, to forget to give thanks for the important things. And I am not talking about people, they obviously are the most important parts of our lives, I am talking about being thankful for “things”. To figure out what is important, you have strip everything away and then add it back it to see the value it added to your life. For example, go two days without brushing your teeth and you will absolutely appreciate the value of your toothbrush.

When we allow our lives to be taken down to the bare essentials we find out what those essentials are. Today, I am thankful for being able to brush my teeth with clean water from a faucet, for freshly laundered underwear, and for electricity. I have a feeling that before my sabbatical is over, I will find that those things are luxuries.