I'm going through a purging spree. Every few years I go through absolutely everything I own and do a lifestyle update. The last time I went through everything was when I packed before I left L.A. I got rid of all big items except one desk and packed everything else in boxes to be stored in a storage unit. At the time, I wasn't sure I'd be transferring everything to Kentucky.
I inventoried the contents of all the boxes and built a database so that I would be able to send someone to the exact box if I really desperately needed something mailed to me. Fortunately, that never happened, but I got to put a really good idea into practice. Anyway, I've since had everything sent to Lexington and I'm now in the process of opening all these boxes for the first time in four years.
It is really amazing how the passage of time will alter your feelings about an object, and I talk all the time about this to my clients when setting up a system and a retention schedule for personal keepsakes. I mean, some of these things were really important to me when I packed them. They were wrapped and labeled so carefully.
There was a whole box of clothing, all the pieces essentially keepsakes and "hopefully-I'll-fit-into-this-again" stuff. Well, when I unwrapped them, I thought, oh lord, why did I take up space with this stuff? I guess at the time I really thought I would wear them again. They really are nice pieces. But at this point, even if I could squeeze myself into them, they wouldn't be age appropriate anymore - I'd look really silly. No, no, no.
The Lifestyle Update. We enter different phases of our life every few years. Elementary school, High School, College, Young Professional, Married, Kids, Divorced, Mature Single or Mature Married, Experienced Professional...the list goes on.
Each time we enter one of these phases, our lives require an overhaul. Activities, hobbies, clothing, furniture, household items, technology, size of living space, transportation, time management - all these elements need to be reevaluated whenever we enter a new phase. Hobbies we spent a lot of time with during one phase may not be so important after having a child. Clothing for College is not appropriate for that new job at the office.
As our lives change, we need our environment and our accessories to support our current lifestyle. Too often we move into a new phase of our life while expecting our old environment and accessories to support us as fully now as they did before. But this is a major disconnect and is exactly the problem I find with most people who have organization problems.
We are not separate from our environment. Everything about it either helps us or hinders us as we move through our lives. All native peoples who are connected to the earth know this. And in their traditional state they lived with very little, especially the nomadic cultures. They knew that a life encumbered by lots of possessions hampered the ability to easily move to a more supportive environment.
Whenever we get the "itch" to go through all corners of our life's possessions and purge, it usually signifies entry into a new phase, and with it, a willingness to do a ruthless examination of our lifestyle. It is our subconcious' way of flagging us that our environment and accessories are no longer supporting us. Don't ignore that itch because if you do, you will most likely feel like you are pushing through life as if you were wading waist-high through a swamp filled with weeds. Go ahead and pull the weeds - the garden of your life will be the prettier and the healthier for it.
So, I did originally have a point to all this...Oh yeah, I was going to talk about a store I took some cds to and I got off on a tangent. Another time.
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