For 51 years, ive seen myself as a cluttered, kind of sloppy person. It bugs my wife, but she lives with it, I guess. The story I’ve told myself is that’s just how I am, I don’t mind it, it generates creativity, other stuff. One concrete problem I had for many many years was not being able to find my wallet or keys, primarily because I would just drop things randomly and unthinkingly, mindlessly.
Reading that book made me want to try something else, and I can tell you, without judging one mode as better than another, that it is very interesting to try something new. And I love this. I love getting rid of things. I love having space around stuff. I like thinking about where im going to put things and having a place for stuff. I love pitching tons of crap. I just like it. Is this the rest of my life, progressively neater and more orderly? Well, maybe, I don’t know. Im a bingey kinda guy. It doesn’t seem like a horrible outcome to me. There’s worse things than being neat and organized. I think I’ll still be internally kinda messy, but as Im thinking now, it’s like a light went on. This is how I want to lvie from now on. I want things very orderly. I just do. I remember not caring, but now I care. I don’t think ic an go back! If you are cluttery and messy, I’d say that’s fine, but I’d encourage anyone thinking about the issue to take a looka t the book and give it a go. It might surprise you how pleasureable it is. For instance, I now take out and put away my coffee grinder each morning. I used to just leave it out. It takes a few more seconds, nothing really. And the counter looks nice! There’s so many little things like this. Maybe I’m slowly trying to wind up my affairs, over a few decades, but it is downright intoxicating to pitch old crap!
My mother is a very very orderly neat and organizaed person, and I am beginning to suspect all my self-proclaimed clutteriness is just rebellion against what she would want…
