Don't even look at me. I stuff money everywhere in my bag when I am in a rush and my books are piled on every available surface within my reach. Then there are my magazines. Every other month, I have a culling and sorting but, yes, nobody could ever accuse me of being neat.
And while my car is relatively junk-free, my desk at work is a horror show. I like to think of it as a reflection of my day: if I am having a particularly stressful and busy time, my desk is an explosion of documents, stationery and books. If things are quiet, my desk is calm. Almost neat.
I used to laugh at neat freaks. One of the guys I used to work for had an obsessively neat desk. Whenever I was in his room for a discussion, I would mess with his head by moving things around. I could feel him struggling to stop himself from smacking my hand. Yes, it was childish of me but I didn't like him very much so I never ever felt guilty for torturing him.
Then there is my friend Ramesh. He not only organises his wallet, his gym bag is organised as well! He once got a look at the inside of my handbag and immediately offered to sort things out.
So what is the big deal about being organised? I found out when I watched an episode of Oprah which dealt with compulsive hoarding. There was this woman whose house was overflowing with stuff.
Her husband and she had "lost" the house to all the things and she could not have family and friends over. There simply was no space. She knew she needed help because she was reduced to sleeping in the house and nothing more.
Organisational expert (I didn't know there was such a field till I saw the show) Peter Walsh came to her rescue. And I tell you, I really learned some things about why we are messy or hoard stuff.
Basically, compulsive hoarding is a kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder. In severe cases, the person has difficulties figuring out what is valuable and what is not. He/she also forms strong emotional attachments to things.
Well, most of us are not that bad but watching the show struck a chord. Who among us does not understand emotional attachments to things? Most of us, at one time or other, have gone through the traumas of packing and moving... whether it is to a new home or office or even country.
As you go through your things -- sorting out what to keep and what to toss -- memories and emotions are bound to surface. I have a friend who simply could not decide what to toss, so she simply took all the junk from the old house to the new house!
Two years later, she decided to clean out her storeroom and realised she had added new "junk" to her old. Crunch time. A particularly organised friend told her, "If you haven't even opened those boxes in two years, you obviously don't need anything inside them. Throw out the whole lot."
And just like that, logic won the day and my friend regained her storeroom. Of course, she wasn't suffering from compulsive hoarding disorder in the first place. But still, there is a hoarder inside all of us.
In my case, I think my clutter probably has more to do with my being lazy than any deeper issues. But I do have emotional attachments to things. Let's take my books, for example. I don't think I will ever get around to re-reading any of them, so why do I insist on keeping so many? I have given away some of them... mostly the ones I did not enjoy and some I positively hated.
As for the rest, they are like old friends. I remember how I felt reading some of them and they bring back memories. In recent years, though, I have come to the realisation that books really are meant to be read.
And so I have begun to wean myself off these attachments. I have been giving away books I have enjoyed. I now think of it as a kind of sharing. The books are still being accumulated faster than they are being given away, but it's a start, right?
But my desk is still cluttered and the handbag a mess. So how? Remember what I said about how my desk is a reflection of what I am going through? Well, I think my clutter is telling me I am not tackling what is going on in my life.
I have taken on too much and in the busy-ness of doing, everything else has fallen along the wayside. Clutter has piled up everywhere: magazines bought and hardly read, email from friends ignored, presents bought and not given yet, and so on.
Everything has been sacrificed at the altar of work and that has become unacceptable to me now. So, yes, time to face the clutter in my mind. I guess the experts are right, it really isn't about the stuff at all. Of course, Ramesh knew that all along.
About NST | Contact Us | Advertising | Subscribe Online | Privacy Policy | How To Get There