Decluttering Our Way to Pesach

Ah, Pesach around the corner. For a recovering clutteraholic, it is actually a wonderful spur for making headway into a never-ending pursuit of a clutter-free life. I’m not talking here about things that matter, that we use, or we truly enjoy and derive pleasure from. I’m referring to “stuff,” those things that sit around in every nook and cranny, that have lost their reason for being, that we have become mind-blind to even seeing anymore! Things that lurk and encroach on our physical spaces and intrude on our domestic peace and sense of well being.

Last month, as I began engaging in my pre-Pesach decluttering, I found in the recesses of yet another box of papers my tried and true “pack rat affirmations and antidotes” that I had penned over the years. They rang so true and clear that I wondered why I had buried them instead of taking them to heart. To ensure that these “pearls of wisdom” would not get waylaid once more, I thought it might be wise to share them with others who might likewise be able to benefit.

So without further ado, in no particular order, I present my collection of pack-rat affirmations, truisms, and antidotes:

• Do not mortgage your tomorrows with your excesses of yesterday.
• If you cannot find it, you may as well not have it – this cannot be repeated often enough!
• If you cannot find it, you don’t truly “own” it.
• If you cannot find it, you probably bought it more than once. (This has actually happened to me.)
• If you cannot find it, and spent time (minutes, hours, days!) looking for it, your search has probably exceeded the value of the object being searched for, and, worse, you have made  your precious life collateral for a relatively worthless object.
• Remember, you cannot take it with you!
• Curate wisely, or your progeny will deem you boring, strange, or worse
• A treasure is defined as an object that is accorded special status among other objects – know how to discriminate between your treasures and everything else, and discard everything else.
• If the wheat is not sifted from the chaff, it may as well all be chaff.
• Time is precious; the time you spend managing value-less “things” could be better spent on people and things you actually value.
• Space is precious; the space you allocate for those value-less things could be used in more valuable ways.
• We do not need everything we want.
• There’s no need to hold on to every book you’ve ever read. Remember, libraries exist!
• Without wisdom (read, wise choices), life cannot be properly lived.
• Not all memories require documentation.
• You cannot make time stand still by holding on to mementos or souvenirs.
• Time should always be invested, never spent.
• Curate only the exceptional. Your children will appreciate the wisdom of your choices.
• Your children do not want to inherit the relics of your mundane life; your grandchildren (most likely) will not appreciate their parents’ baby teeth!
• Wisdom is a far better legacy than a legacy of stuff – which will either lead your progeny to acquire the cluttering bug themselves or cause them to dump most of it. (Trust me, they will have to find room for their own stuff.)
• Discriminate between your needs and your wants. Curb your wants.
• Fill the needs of others with items you no longer need – another spin on “one man’s trash is another’s treasure.” Recycle and repurpose your stuff.
• Free yourself from the excesses of our society by following the precept that less is more! That, too, cannot be repeated often enough.
• In that vein, less things equals more: more time, more space, more money, more fulfillment in life, more wisdom.
• The things we acquire do not lead to fulfillment – that must always come from within.

Chazal taught, “Ayzeh hu ashir? Hasame’ach bechelko – Who is wealthy? The one who is content with his lot.” We do not need a lot to feel contentment. We live in an age of excess, and increasingly, that includes a surfeit of technology (smartphones, apps, social media, email, mp3s, gizmos I cannot keep up with) all of which crowd our lives with demands for our attention. Ultimately, all excess, all those things, drain us and rob us of the one thing that is irreplaceable: our precious time, the essential currency of our lives.

So off I go once more, to dig and sift and even find chometz along the way. I hope that this year I can shed my life of all the ‘things” that weigh me down, which is the chometz of my life, and taste the freedom of a clutter-free life, which will allow me to focus most clearly on what is essential: my family, my friends, and my avodas Hashem. Wishing everyone a chag kasher, clutter-free, vesame’ach!

• Decluttering Our Way to Pesach

  by A. Michelsohn

   

  Ah, Pesach around the corner. For a recovering clutteraholic, it is actually a wonderful spur for making headway into a never-ending pursuit of a clutter-free life. I’m not talking here about things that matter, that we use, or we truly enjoy and derive pleasure from. I’m referring to “stuff,” those things that sit around in every nook and cranny, that have lost their reason for being, that we have become mind-blind to even seeing anymore! Things that lurk and encroach on our physical spaces and intrude on our domestic peace and sense of well being.

  Last month, as I began engaging in my pre-Pesach decluttering, I found in the recesses of yet another box of papers my tried and true “pack rat affirmations and antidotes” that I had penned over the years. They rang so true and clear that I wondered why I had buried them instead of taking them to heart. To ensure that these “pearls of wisdom” would not get waylaid once more, I thought it might be wise to share them with others who might likewise be able to benefit.

  So without further ado, in no particular order, I present my collection of pack-rat affirmations, truisms, and antidotes:

• Do not mortgage your tomorrows with your excesses of yesterday.
• If you cannot find it, you may as well not have it – this cannot be repeated often enough!
• If you cannot find it, you don’t truly “own” it.
• If you cannot find it, you probably bought it more than once. (This has actually happened to me.)
• If you cannot find it, and spent time (minutes, hours, days!) looking for it, your search has probably exceeded the value of the object being searched for, and, worse, you have made  your precious life collateral for a relatively worthless object.
• Remember, you cannot take it with you!
• Curate wisely, or your progeny will deem you boring, strange, or worse
• A treasure is defined as an object that is accorded special status among other objects – know how to discriminate between your treasures and everything else, and discard everything else.
• If the wheat is not sifted from the chaff, it may as well all be chaff.
• Time is precious; the time you spend managing value-less “things” could be better spent on people and things you actually value.
• Space is precious; the space you allocate for those value-less things could be used in more valuable ways.
• We do not need everything we want.
• There’s no need to hold on to every book you’ve ever read. Remember, libraries exist!
• Without wisdom (read, wise choices), life cannot be properly lived.
• Not all memories require documentation.
• You cannot make time stand still by holding on to mementos or souvenirs.
• Time should always be invested, never spent.
• Curate only the exceptional. Your children will appreciate the wisdom of your choices.
• Your children do not want to inherit the relics of your mundane life; your grandchildren (most likely) will not appreciate their parents’ baby teeth!
• Wisdom is a far better legacy than a legacy of stuff – which will either lead your progeny to acquire the cluttering bug themselves or cause them to dump most of it. (Trust me, they will have to find room for their own stuff.)
• Discriminate between your needs and your wants. Curb your wants.
• Fill the needs of others with items you no longer need – another spin on “one man’s trash is another’s treasure.” Recycle and repurpose your stuff.
• Free yourself from the excesses of our society by following the precept that less is more! That, too, cannot be repeated often enough.
• In that vein, less things equals more: more time, more space, more money, more fulfillment in life, more wisdom.
• The things we acquire do not lead to fulfillment – that must always come from within.

• Chazal taught, “Ayzeh hu ashir? Hasame’ach bechelko – Who is wealthy? The one who is content with his lot.” We do not need a lot to feel contentment. We live in an age of excess, and increasingly, that includes a surfeit of technology (smartphones, apps, social media, email, mp3s, gizmos I cannot keep up with) all of which crowd our lives with demands for our attention. Ultimately, all excess, all those things, drain us and rob us of the one thing that is irreplaceable: our precious time, the essential currency of our lives.

  So off I go once more, to dig and sift and even find chometz along the way. I hope that this year I can shed my life of all the ‘things” that weigh me down, which is the chometz of my life, and taste the freedom of a clutter-free life, which will allow me to focus most clearly on what is essential: my family, my friends, and my avodas Hashem. Wishing everyone a chag kasher, clutter-free, vesame’ach!

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