-Thomas Merton
I recently spoke with my sister about a book she was considering reading. The writer had decided to get rid of one possession a day for a month. After the month long period she decided to continue the ritual because she found it so beneficial. I thought about this idea for a while, yet considered it unnecessary for myself. I am a purger. If a counter gets too cluttered or a closet is overflowing, I go through it, reorganize it, and get rid of the stuff that no longer serves me and my family.
The thing about this way of decluttering however, is that it is the result of frustration. Clutter makes me crazy! I just can't let it go on that way. This doesn't seem like the most productive way to deal with clutter. Instead of getting agitated, maybe the simple habit of letting go of something each day could prevent some of these agitated outbursts of cleaning.
After some deliberation about where to start, I thought I had the perfect thing to get rid for this first day of purging; my broken Dyson vacuum. I thought the warranty had expired so I had replaced it with a new vacuum that I found at a closeout store for half price! I didn't want to just throw the old vacuum away though so I had it standing in a corner of my kitchen cluttering it up. I was looking online this morning for a place to resell or recycle it. Well, lo and behold, I came across this fact online: Dyson vacuums have a 5 year warranty instead of the 3 years I thought it was. So, getting rid of my $300.00 vacuum that is still under warranty would be slightly irresponsible of me. Now instead of ridding myself of a piece of useless clutter, I have one more thing to do. I have to get my vacuum repaired by Dyson and then (hopefully) sell it.
So what do I get rid of today? My broken electric toothbrush that has been sitting around in our bathroom? No, I can't find the return mailing sticker so that it can be recycled by the manufacturer.
Maybe I will just have to start small by getting rid of this shiny red insert from the box my tablet came in.
Even though this may seem like garbage that I should have already thrown away when I first unpacked my new device, I had been keeping it for...ummm, something. Maybe it would make a good container for organizing a drawer. Or maybe I should save it to protect my tablet when not in use. Maybe I could use it like scrap paper to jot down notes on (notice I had already started to use it for that). I was seeing the wonderful possibilities of this box and there is some merit to that I am sure. Still, I had to get rid of something today and I was pretty sure this would just sit on the side table in the hallway until the table because so full of random stuff that it was pushed onto the floor where someone walking by would step on it and it would then become garbage anyway. It seemed the logical step to skip that sequence of annoying events and just recycle it now. So it was with some trepidation that I broke the box down, folded it up and put it in the garbage can.
"What! You didn't recycle it?" I can hear you chastising me mentally. No, I didn't. I guess I am an eco-terrorist after all.
(The guilt is too much for me. I will take it outside and put it in the recycling in as soon as I finish writing this. I promise.)
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