Disorder and Junk

Clear Home Diet

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Disorder and Junk

Disorder encourages stagnation; Order encourages Flow.............

It goes without saying that we are all different. We all acquire our habits differently and have different life values and goals. If you have found yourself reading these pages, you are probably not perfectly organized and not satisfied with your current amount of "house fat" or related lifestyle choices.

I have thought about how I got to the point where the majority of my day's time was devoted to trying to manage my "junk". Not even putting away things, but trying to invent ways to make my physical movement in the house safe. It felt like I was in a constant state of reorganizing, never satisfied with the arrangement and accomplishing only temporary fixes. The kind of things I had accumulated, like knick-nacks, half finished projects, things to be fixed etc., in other words, things that went nowhere. That was my stagnation. I could not think creatively, did not feel like working in a disorderly environment, and felt constant stress from how my house looked unpresentable. Since childhood I had associated the ability to keep one's house in order as a mark of maturity and adulthood. My personal inability to do so in my adult years was a sign that I was really not in control of my life. Instead of working, creating things, experiencing life, I was in physical and mental stagnation.

The simplest solution to NEVER getting to that point is not to have a lot of stuff. If you have been able to live that kind of life, more power to you! I have friends like that. I often envy them in their ability to seemingly not NEED things. They say they envy me in other things.

The more remarkable thing about so much "house fat" was that the more i had it, the more I kept extra fat. I guess it was the stress of having to manage things that burdened me. I often felt that about the majority of knick-nacks, or most things I had.

I have given myself a year (it started from March 22, 2008) to completely clear my house of unwanted things. In the process, I have become more aware of how I acquire things, why I keep them, how I buy into the advertising or marketing etc. I have decided to organize my thoughts on these pages.

Questions to think about:

What are the stores really selling? what are those things?

How many things do you actually handle and use daily?

What spaces in your home are like eddies? where does the stuff accumulate?

what does your "house fat" consist of?

What would you do with the freedom, if you did not have to take care of all your things?

If I wanted to change my lifestyle forever, first, I needed to stop getting new things. These are things i told myself:

Don't buy when:

1. you are bored and need entertainment;
2. you are not planning on it, or by chance;
3. you feel you "need to have it" 'cause it is so pretty or cute;
4. you don't have an immediate use for it;
5. you have the same thing at home which is older but in working order, and you just want to get a newer model;
6. something will do a similar job to what you already have, being redundant;
7. it is almost perfect, but no cigar;
8. just because it is on sale, is cheap, or even free;
9. you think you might use it in the future;
10. just because you think it worked well for someone else;
11. it is a single use item; its function does not take a significant amount of time in your daily life;

By the way, I am not just talking paying for things., I mean any kind of a way you bring it into the house!

The next step was to start getting rid of things I had accumulated over the years. Here is what I told myself:

Get rid of it IF:

1. you forgot you had it;
2. your lifestyle changed and you have not had a need for it or used in a long time;
3. its only value is in the memory you connect it with
4. you feel you will betray the gifter if you got rid of it;
5. it is broken and you have not had the thought of fixing it in a long time;
6. its size or presence interferes with your daily activities and slows you down, or weighs you down;
7. there are more than one of the same item;
8. it has been stored in a long time, and lead a miserable lonely life in a garage or the attic;

I do not mean just throwing things into the trash. That would not solve any problems, just redirect them. I have given some things away, sold some, recycled some, threw away real trash.