Dump It! You CAN Let Some Things Go!

I was talking to a friend the other day about overcoming past issues. The remark was made that sorting out everything and getting things in order was hard. My response led me to a tweet:

@BillSnodgrass: Sometimes, you just have to dump your box out so you can sort out your mess. 

#LiveBetter

Why do we cling to things we need to let go? We keep them in our life-boxes, cluttering up everything and limiting our options? We hold on to useless (or harmful) habits, harsh words said by unloving others, negative attitudes, impossible expectations (often imposed by critical others)... We cling to old, no longer applicable, ways of doing things as if they still have a chance of leading to some desired outcome. Why do we do this? Why do we carry all these things around in our life-boxes endlessly?

Perhaps it is easier to just keep going and keep carrying things with us? There is some comfort in the familiar, even if the familiar keeps us from experiencing a better, smarter, healthier way of living. We plod on, unchanged by the changing world around us, unaffected by the new reality of our life, doing what we have always done, believing what we have always believed. We fill our life-box with junk crowding out what could be good and healthy alternatives!

Yet at some point, our life-box is so full, so cluttered, we are hindered from growing and becoming the person we are meant to be. We are stuck with what was, what has been, dragging the weight of the past as we try to soar into the future. We need to stop. We need to look at the contents of our life-box, keeping the good, the adaptive, the functional, the healthy and we MUST reject all the dead, pointless, hurtful rest.

Dumping out the box is messy, hard, and sometimes painful, but... Well, sometimes we need to do it.

Cautionary Combos

In the course of day-to-day life, there are products that we use fairly regularly that, while used in a common location serve far from common purposes. For example bleach and fabric softener are used, both, in the laundry but for very different reasons.

I have noticed in my bathroom that I store certain products in areas where they are convenient. However in doing this, I introduce a huge risk, at times! Mixing up some products could really have--let's go with "undesirable"--outcomes! Fortunately, so far, I have not mixed any of these up!

Here are a few things that, while kept together, ought not be interchanged:

Don't let the flip-top caps fool
you! These products are
NOT interchangeable!

• On the back of the commode: Clorox® disinfectant wipes ≠ Cottonelle wipes
  
  
• Under the sink: Windex® bulk refill ≠ Listerine® Cool Mint mouthwash
  
  
• In the shower: Soft Scrub® ≠ shampoo
  
  
• In the medicine cabinet: A&D Ointment® ≠ toothpaste
  
  

I am sure there are many others and in other areas of the home!

I want to invite you to add comments with your own cautionary combos!

Get On With It

There is a fine line between being patient and being passive. I recently retweeted the following:

From @ThisInspiresUs: They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. - Andy Warhol

#LiveBetter #change

There is an interesting truth to this quote. Indeed, time does change things--not in and of its own accord. Change comes about because, as time passes, people are taking actions. Depending on the actions taken, things will change one way or another.  The more like the past that new actions might be, the less things will change. The more radically different new actions might be, the more things will change. It is not time alone that brings about change. Change comes as a result of changes made by people compounded over time.

Sitting back passively waiting for time to change things is ineffective. Surely, some things change slowly. Being patient while waiting for effort and actions to pay off is fine, but to fail to participate in bringing about change simply does not. Change will (or might) occur with time because others are directing it. In such a case, the outcome will be determined by the effort of someone else. The passive person will have no influence on what the new circumstances will look like. Their hope to see changes they desire will be squashed by the desires of someone else. To realize desired change, then, means not being passive.

The trick to bringing about desired change is to know what one wants and to work toward that. I cannot understate how important it is to "know what one wants"! Change to a vague, undefined image of something is frustrating at best, if not totally fruitless. Know what the desired change looks like, then get on with the work of bringing about that change.

There are two sides to such work. One side is like painting a picture. When you know what the desired outcome looks like, start adding things to the canvas that fits. For example, if people seek to change the dynamic of a relationship to something more fulfilling, then they need to add to the routine things that are part of a fulfilling relationship!

The other side to the work of change is like sculpture. Once the desired outcome is identified, chip away everything that does not fit.  Take away everything that does not look like, for instance, healthy eating, and what is left will be--well healthy eating.

Change, then, comes from the sum of the two processes--adding in things that fit the desired outcome and taking away anything that does not.

When a people take on the task of changing, they cannot sit back passively and wait for time to act alone. They should be patient--yes--but patient only in giving time to their efforts at making change for themselves.

Rich Is As Rich Thinks

Too many times, it seems to me, people tie the idea of being happy with the aquisition of stuff. This is unfortunate because so rarely does stuff actually bring about lasting satisfaction.

From ‏@lNSPlRING: There are two ways of being rich. One is to have what you want, the other is to be satisfied with what you have.

Having what you want is a tricky proposition. How many times does a person see something they want, purchase it or otherwise obtain it, and then discover that it really does not bring to their life the expected pleasures? It is very easy to over estimate how much joy something will bring. Our wants often mislead us with promisies--vapid claims that if we just have that one more thing then...

Oh, to be sure, I have acquired some things that I am very fond of! The utility and convenience some things bring contribute to my sense of happiness.

I am writting this blog on my iPad, which I resisted purchasing for a long time. When Visible Music College asked me to relocate to the Chicago area to head up the opening of a new campus, I thought the functions of an iPad would be valuable, and I was right.

Does this device make me happy? Hmm... It does not make me happy inherently. Not sitting on a desk. I am happy with what I can accomplish as a result of having this wonderful piece of technology, not just because I have it.

Therein is the key. Happiness does not come from things. Happiness comes from our mind. How we think about the things we have results in happiness--the things themselves are incapable of producing ANY emotional response within us. Our reaction comes from the ideas, values, and beliefs we hold and how those internal predispositions interact with the things in our life.

I have a couple of pictures of my sons that probably cost me less than $20.00 total to have printed and framed. When I see them, my mind is connected to years of experiences and memories. I respond positively; I am happy as a result. The happiness does not come from the "things." If another person who did not know my sons had those pictures, they would NOT respond with the same happiness.

Being satisfied is a decision. Looking at what you have and, if it realistically performs as it should, deciding to be content disempowers the lies of our wants. Deciding to be content will lead to being happy with what you have.

If we define being rich, not as a measure of how much we have, but rather as a measure of how little we want, then it is far easier to be rich by wanting what we have and being satisfied than it is to be rich by acquiring more and more stuff.

Making a Difference

Day by day, we move in and out of the lives of other people: family members, friends, coworkers, store clerks, cashiers, passersby, etc. Inevitably, we interact with these people, touching their lives and being touched by them.

On any given day, the people we encounter may be in the midst of a wonderful day, or far too often, they may be plowing through challenges or even adversity. As a result, the way they treat us can vary. The cashier at the convenience store who is terse and seemingly disinterested in us might be, indeed, thoughtless and unmotivated. But on the other hand, they might be preoccupied by mentally planning household management issues for their children, feeling the sting of an earlier rude customer, or experiencing any number of other reactions to any number of life challengers.

For someone wishing to make the world better, someone wishing to live fully and richly, the cause of someone's moodiness is irrelevant. Our call is, according to Jesus, to be salt and light to the world, to offer hope and encouragement--to preserve and to illuminate in a sometimes tainted and dark world. Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls this being the "visible community" of God to the world. At Visible Music College, we embrace this idea and attempt to infuse it into all our students who will graduate and go into "the real world" to serve.

Our response to this need not be complicated or involve grand initiatives. I recently quoted a tweet that quoted Aesop:

From @Inspire_Us:No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. -Aesop 

#LiveBetter Live so as to make the lives of others better.

Don't be discouraged by thinking it won't matter in the long run. It will matter immediately.

I have spent years being overtly friendly and pleasant to store clerks and cashiers. I have never done this and thought I had wasted my time. My prevailing memory is the look of pleased surprise to my simple "Hi, how are you doing today?" said with a smile and a look in their eyes. I cannot remember any cases ever of someone being unhappy with me for taking an extra few seconds to hold the door for them.

Kindness can be simple and easy. It can become something we do naturally without thinking. It should!

There is in theology a concept called human agency. In part, the idea is that God works in the world, now, through the acts and efforts of human beings empowered spiritually by God. If a good work is to be done in the world, it is to be done by the faithful. If kindness is to be shown, it will be shown by the faithful. 

While being the working agents of God's desires for the world need not involve grand initiatives, I would argue that the sum of an army of small gestures would have huge affect. If twenty people smile and offer a friendly greeting to a store clerk, the sum of those encounters would surely brighten the clerks mood.

Many people doing acts of kindness, no matter how small, will make a difference. The key is for each person to do something, knowing that whatever that something is, it is not wasted.