Brothers and sisters:
A few years ago for Christmas my mother made my sister and I shadow boxes of some memorabilia from our childhood. In mine she carefully arranged my track and band letters, medals and ribbons as well as buttons from the Strongsville High School Marching Mustangs trip to Detroit in 1981 for the Thanksgiving Day Parade, a boarding pass from the family vacation we took to Phoenix along with the “pilots wings” they passed out to little kids on the flights and a letter I wrote to the Cleveland Press in 1977 that got published in the kids section of the editorial page.
My mom is very sentimental and all those kitschy things that you throw in the bottom of your junk drawer and forget about, well, to her they are precious mementos that represent your life journey. Ask my wife and She Who Must Be Obeyed will tell you that they are clutter and have no place except in a landfill. As for me, I fall somewhere in between the extremes of the two women in my life.
I believe in holding on to things that are significant to you. Whether it is medals from long ago competitions or the ashtray you made for your father in first grade, if it holds positive significance for you, then hold on to it, if not then let it go.
I have a friend who is a hoarder. He is not nearly as bad as the subjects of the reality show, but a hoarder none the less. If he goes in to a store to buy a pack of gum, for example, he’ll buy five because five is better than one. At one point in his life, as his business was winding down, he came up with a theory that his life should be able to fit in two boxes. At that point he ordered a dumpster and started throwing stuff away that he could not give away or sell. This lasted until he cleaned out his shop and moved his office into his basement. He then cleaned that out and managed to keep it clean for a while until he fell back into his old buying habit. Now his stash of stuff is growing again and he finds himself in much the same predicament as he was before except with a lot less space to store it in.
I was going through some old paperwork, sorting what to shred and what to keep, when I discovered a scrap of paper mixed among some junk I was ready to discard. On it was a simple two-line quote titled A Father’s Love:
“A father’s love gives strength to his sons, guidance to his daughters and protection to his home. He is the most important teacher because in him his children see the qualities they look for in other men.”
After that everything stopped. This was no longer about the physical clutter of the paperwork but the mental clutter that I had to clean out of my life.
So why do we do this to ourselves? Why does anyone do anything? Why would anyone hang onto 50 different small screws they’ve gathered from different jobs and keep them in a tape container in their tool bag? Because someday you might need them? That reason aside, what good are you doing yourself by hanging onto fragments of the past that are not doing you any good?
Fall is a time to clean up in preparation for the long winter ahead. Take the time to not only clean up your garage, shed, den or basement but also get rid of the emotional baggage that holds you back from becoming who you are supposed to be.
Till next month,
Work smart, work safe and slow down for safety.
Don
This article originally appeared in the October 2009 issue of the Elevator Constructor
Through the Mill 