Organizing Your Way to Freedom

I admit it. I hate the thought of organizing. It cuts into the time that I want to use to enjoy life, and, for me, I feel that organizing is not freedom. Yet, I know that it is.

There is the dichotomy. What you feel and what you know often are complete opposites. As you lay back on the grass and watch clouds pass overhead, you may feel that it is you who is in motion. But you know that is not correct. As you sit in the window seat over the wing of a large plane, you may think that the up and down undulation of the wing will cause the wing to shear off, but you know that flying is probably the safest way to travel. What you know and what you feel are different.

So, how can the pedantic task of organizing be an expression of freedom? And how can organizing be a key to a simple life?

I live a life that can best be described as organized chaos. My wife used to say that, even though I lived on the prairies, I was always looking for a mountain to climb. If I could not find one, I would create one. Probably true.

I detest chaos. When things are truly out of control and unpredictable, it bothers me. I have to make sense of it. Yet, I love riding the tail of chaos, hanging on and steering it. But I only want that control over my own life, not others.

Having four or five major incidents, problems or events for which I am responsible at the same time is heaven, so long as I am able to choose the direction and the method of dealing with the situations.

Again, my ex-wife comes into play. While she was going through her divorce from her ex, he ran her ragged, causing her immense stress. His lawyer was a pit bull. Or so she thought. Then she heard about my talents, and she tasked me with doing her legal work. The condition I set was that I had complete control over the process. She thought that was a wonderful idea. She wanted her ex, a police officer, to receive his come-uppance.

Then, when the real heavy lifting started, she wanted me to back off. I told her “I do it my way.” She disagreed, and I temporarily stopped working on her case. I was doing it for free, and had no status as a lawyer, but we were winning. She thought I was a control freak.

A month later, her ex had her on the ropes. Again, she wanted me to take over and do it my way. I did.

Eventually, we won entirely, against a top-rated divorce lawyer. I stepped back, and she was again in control. Even though she had minor issues regarding custody over the next few years, there were no more mountains, and I declined repeatedly to take any control in the matter.

As much as I dislike being in charge (I like to lead from the middle), I love a challenge. A mountain, if you wish. It can be chaotic, but if you have control of the direction, the chaos or whirlwind of activity is a climbable mountain.

Which brings us back to controlled chaos, and organization. You need to be able to control your life to find the calm which enables you to choose your direction. You need to know, not what lies ahead, but what options you have to deal with what lies ahead.

That is the essence of organization.

Organization starts with knowing what tools you have at your disposal, and where they are.

One of the problems that many of us face as we attempt to organize our lives is that we have too much stuff to be able to filter out the essential from the non-essential, the tools we need from the toys that get in the way.

We also do not have a clear vision of where we want to go, or what issues we want to deal with—for which to use the tools we have.

We may live a life of emotional and physical clutter. Decluttering our lives, like decluttering our house, is not a matter of simply finding places to put the clutter—of storing it. It is a matter of organizing so that we have less of the clutter and toys that interfere with our enjoyment of life.

Perhaps, we have created our own mountains (often of trash) and have a difficult time choosing which one to climb.

But organizing starts with knowing our direction. What is important to us.

Organizing, once you know what you want to keep and what you want to discard, means that the places and spaces in which you put stuff are much larger than when you try to cram everything in without structure.

Imagine you have only a carry-on bag available to you for your two-week vacation in the tropics. Usually, you have two stowable suitcases and a carry-on, and they always are full. Is it possible?

Recently, my wife and I faced that challenge, even though we usually, between the two of us, have two carry-ons and one stowable suitcase. We would be downsizing by approximately half.

Still, we managed, easily.

The key lay in where we were going, knowing what we would be doing, researching what laundry options were available at our destination and anticipating the weather conditions.

Instead of multiple sets of clothing, we pared down to two options. Launder one set while we wore the other. One pair of shoes, one pair of sandals. Wear the heavy clothes on the airplane instead of packing them. Buy toiletries upon arrival, instead of bringing them along. We ended up with free space in our carry-ons. Yet, we enjoyed every moment of the vacation.

No, imagine your life. How much extra, duplicate baggage do we have? Where are we going, what will we be doing? Identify the tools that we need for this journey. The rest is excess. Clutter.

Like the toothpaste and shampoo, we do not need all the tools with us all the time. We just need to know where we can access them.

But travelling light relived a lot of stress and complications for us. It gave us the freedom, both financially and emotionally, to live a more stress-free vacation, or even stress-free life.

Knowing what you may face and being prepared for what you might face alleviates stress and worry. Organizing for possibilities is not the same as completely controlling your world, or the world around you.

Organizing allows you to ride the tail of chaos and control your own direction. And without knowing what you want, what you need and where you want to go, you merely are caught in the whirlwind of life around you, subject to what life throws at you without a plan.

That is not freedom.

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