Cleaning Up-A Metaphor For Life

The last week or so, my trusty notebook had been running real slowly. No longer the instantaneous gratification from button crunching, unless the notebook is up to par, it’s really pretty useless to me.

So, last night I got bored about halfway through the President’s State of the Union address. I pulled out the slow-running piece to see what the problem may have been. After searching through my E mail program, I found 10,000(yes, that’s 10,000) old E mails built up in my sent and deleted folders. Freaking 10,000!

I punched in the command to delete all of them and, Whammo! It’s like I have a brand new notebook again! Not only do I have a perfectly running machine, but I walk away NOT feeling like the computer imbecile I usually do!

And, isn’t this kinda a metaphor for life? Get rid of the old, unused stuff that’s slowing up everything you do! By nature, I’m a pack rat. Due to knowing how devastating this can be to my existence, I have to try really, really hard to only keep the stuff I need to keep.

But what do we really need? I need my working life, I need a moderate amount of creature comforts, I need food, I need shelter and I need certain amount of things that anchor me to who I am as a person(momentos, family heirlooms, etc.) Past that? Do I need 5000 shirts? Or a coffee mug from every place I’ve ever been? Or a backup of every toiletry under the sun? No, no and no.

Here in 2008, I plan to keep thinning out my life. Minimizing things I don’t need, only keeping things around I truly use-not just everything I want. Quelling those desires for more is a sure fire way to limit the crapola that builds up in my world and detracts me from my missions in life.