Sugar Bend Farm

Attacking the CLUTTER

6:49 AM, 2008-Feb-19 .. 1 comments .. Link

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have a lot of CLUTTER in my home. A lot of excess stuff. I have been wanting to rid our home of all of the extra; for lack of a better word- "junk"; that we have in our home. But after reading in the book Your Money or Your Life, I have once again been inspired to look at things in a different way. In the book, the authors, Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin propose that there is a point of leveling off that is called ENOUGH. Beyond that the curve of fulfillment turns and goes downward. Basically there is a point of saturation where you have enough and anything else is CLITTER. They define clutter as

anything that is excess for YOU. It is whatever you have that doesn't serve you, yet takes up space in your world. To let go of cluttter then, is not deprivation, it's lightening up and opening up space for something new to happen.

They go on to say that:

Enough is a wide and stable plateau. It is a place of alertness, creativity and freedom. From this place, being suffocated under a mountain of clutter that must be stored, cleaned, moved, gotten rid of and paid for on time is a fate worse than dearth.

This got me to thinking, where is my saturation point, where is the point of ENOUGH for me? At what point did my fulfillment curve start to turn downward? I know it has turned downward. There is so much stuff that I couldn't possibly get enjoyment from all of it. And we have moved so much through the years, that it has become a burden to pack, move and sometimes store all of the CLUTTER. As I speak, I have a garage full of clutter, a storage shed that I rent for $58.00 a month full of clutter, and a 12ftX24ft storage shed behind my parents home in Louisiana, full of what else, but clutter. I guess you could say I am a big time pack rat. But PACK RAT no more!!! I feel like that I don't own my clutter, but that it ownes me. It takes more energy to care for it than it give pleasure in return for possessing it. So--away with the clutter.

My parents are coming for a visit the first of next month and I am going to spend several days, if the weather permits, doing away with the clutter, while they are here to help with Noah and Megan's school.
I am in the planning stage now. Working on my strategy. Trying to figure the best way to attack this enemy of my contentment and fulfillment. This robber of my time, energy and creativity. At times it seems like such a monumental task, that I can't possibly accomplish it. But I am psyched, and ready. I am armed with the determination to rid my life and my family of all the stuff that is beyond ENOUGH. So we can free up our space and our minds of the excess that demands so much attention. I am going to start in the garage. I want to get it to a place that we could actually park a car in it. Isn't that a novel idea? So stay tuned. I will take before and after photo's and we will see how much I get accomplished.

According to Joe D. and Vicki R. in YMOYL:

...clutter enters our lives through the "more is better" door. It comes from the disease of materialism, of looking for fulfillment in outer possessions...

...As your awareness of clutter deepens, you'll be inspired to spring clean your whole life.

And my life could definately use a spring cleaning...