On Saturday I took a bag of books that I had previously scanned (and thus turned into searchable PDF files) to the local library to donate them. I am sure other people can feel capable of donating books they’ve read, but never scanned, to the library. But, I am not one of them. I still have a desire to keep the books, just like I had a desire to turn my mother’s old vinyl records into MP3s before getting rid of the physical records.
I am happy to get rid of the physical items so long as I can still get some use out of them. I’m not ridding myself of the “clutter” completely. But I am majorly downsizing the clutter with this process. It’s taking a lot of time. So it takes longer than quitting cold turkey, so to say.
Catastrophization
I think decluttering is a process. You do have to let your mind come to terms with not hanging on to the possibilities. I can get into catastrophization with the US election news. I shared a paper from Harvard about miswanting that says we are not as affected by who gets elected as we think we will be. And I agree with that.
But I also know it was written before 2020. And lockdowns and mandates heavily affected people’s lives. So I know we catastrophize, but at the same time, I think some things could change based on who gets into the US presidential office. I think about Kamala winning and perhaps having supply issues or Trump winning and Democrats going crazy and starting a civil war. My mind still goes to these places sometimes. I tell myself that it’s not that likely. We did make it through 4 years with Trump without the leftists starting a war. And the states did sue Biden over his over-reaching attempt to mandate vaccines.
But, there is a fear of not being able to get what I need or want in times of trouble. That fear is why it can be difficult for me to give up things. And one of those relatively small fears in letting go of the books is that if the power goes out, I may no longer be able to access them. But if the power has gone out for such a long period of time, I probably have worse things to deal with than not being able to read. I will probably have more pressing issues in that scenario.
The practice of asking yourself, “Why am I keeping this?” “What am I afraid will happen if I let this go?” is a great mindfulness routine. I looked around my bathroom sink for instance and thought about the lotion I hadn’t touched or used for months. I thought I should get rid of it, and then thought, “Winter is coming.” I got really dehydrated and had horrible dry skin last winter, so I will probably keep it. But I can think about putting it somewhere else if I do not use it frequently. That’s a job for another day.
It’s okay to say you want to keep something for now. But try to understand yourself and your reasoning better with that mindfulness exercise.
Your Subconscious is Always Giving You Messages
Here is an interesting thing that happened. When I decided to scan my books I thought I would watch a TV show, but I saw a movie I was almost finished with and decided to finish that. Afterward, I saw a movie recommended that I had never seen before, but always thought I should: The Labyrinth.
In the movie, Sarah is supposed to be rescuing her half-brother from the labyrinth, but she ends up in this manufactured, magical representation of her room. It’s an attempt by those in the Labyrinth to keep her from getting to her half-brother in time. She’s surrounded by “things” from her childhood.
This is all an attempt to distract her from her main, virtuous goal. And I saw it and thought, this is part of the hoarder problem. I think we all have a divine purpose and we can be surrounded by stuff that reminds us of when times were more comfortable (childhood). But those things distract us and keep us “busy.” We’re so busy taking care of things that we don’t do the actual divine tasks we should be doing. I also understand spending a bunch of time scanning books is also, perhaps, being distracted by things. But I think this, working through it, chronicling about the process, and sharing videos that others can perhaps declutter to while watching, is part of my divine purpose.
While watching it I realized I had seen this scene before. For some reason I watched a Youtube video many years ago that had part of this scene in it. I don’t remember that video or what the point was. I wasn’t conscious of it. But my subconscious knew this scene was in the movie, so it manifested in my life at the exact time I started to declutter my old stuff. The reason I had a desire to watch it at that moment was orchestrated in some way. I don’t think it was by chance.
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