Something To Think About

Dump the Junk

By:  Dr. Michael R. McGough

It was spring and as had been his practice for several years, he did his spring cleaning.  Most years it was a rather lack-luster effort that accomplished little to reduce the total mass of his accumulated holdings.  He was a keeper, so throwing things out did not come natural to him.  In fact, it was down right tough for him to part with almost anything.  He could always justify saving things.  He just convinced himself that either he or someone else may need it.  As a result he had accumulated a good deal of stuff over the years. 

Luckily, he was a somewhat organized type of person, so his collection of stuff at least had some semblance of neatness and order.  That was fortunate for if he had not been semi-organized, there may well have been no room for him in his own life. Even so, the total mass of his accumulations was enormous.  He had so much that he had long ago lost track of it all.  He once told a friend that he needed a paint brush and that it was easier to go and buy one than try to locate any of the ones he had saved over the years.

During one particular year his spring cleaning took on a new twist.  He realized that he had been holding onto some stuff that was not in his basement, his attic, his garage or any of the several small storage building he had build over the years.  He was also a keeper of old personal stuff.  For example, he was involved in several activities in which he had lost interest long ago, but he could not give them up.  Even though he was a mild mannered individual with a forgiving nature, he was hanging on to some old hurts and angers that surfaced in his thinking from time to time.  He also periodically lamented some opportunities that life had not afforded him and some instances where things just did not work out as he had wished.  And mixed in with all of that, there were some personal fears that had been around since childhood.  None of this personal stuff was debilitating in nature, but on the other hand, it did not serve any good purpose either.  And when viewed collectively, it did deserve his attention.  

So in addition to throwing out five boxes of coffee cans,  a closet full of clothes that he had worn more than thirty pounds ago, a pair of cracked water skis that he had never used and had no intention fixing or ever using, he decided to toss some personal junk that he had been hording.  Just as he had done with the junk around his house, he began with a careful inventory of what he was personally keeping around.  As he worked his way through this emotional stash, he asked himself a series of questions.

One of the first questions he asked himself was how long he had been holding on to a particular fear, a special hurt that he wanted to retain or some grudge that he simply could not let go.  If it had been around for a while and nothing had come of it, he took that as an indication that it was not worth keeping any longer. 

The second question he asked himself related to his past efforts to deal with or make any sense of some fear, a particular resentment or some previously unquestioned perception that seemed to linger from year to year.  He figured that if he had been unable to do anything to resolve them, there was a good chance that simply moving beyond them was a prudent option.

A final question focused his attention on the potential good that could come to him or anyone else by retaining the personal junk he had been storing.  Unless there was some compelling, or at least sensible, rationale for doing so, he resolved to clean them up and move them out. 

In the end he was able to dump some personal grievances that had been around for years, one of which went back to junior high.  He neatly packaged up two fears that for certain were now useless to him.  He politely, yet firmly, dropped out of two groups in which he had long ago lost interest.  For years he had dragged himself to monthly meetings and a summer picnic by the sheer force of habit. 

Although the process of managing the stuff of life effectively, whether it is coffee cans or old grudges, is never over, periodically taking stock and resolving to dump the junk can produce pleasant results.  Reducing the load that you carry each day, even if just by a little, can easily become a quality of life exercise that may produce surprisingly positive results.