De-cluttering & Treasures

At least, once in our lifetime, we all have de-cluttered our bookshelves, our closets, our rooms, that garage that has more space for rows of boxes than for our car, the entire house, or maybe our life in general.

De-cluttering, like we all know, is throwing away things that you do not want to hold on to or that no longer matter — a photograph of an ex-boyfriend who didn’t treat you well, discount coupons that have way passed their ‘valid upto’ dates, and business cards of people you have no chances of needing them again whatsoever.

In my case, it was a file folder of newspaper cuttings and a bag of countless newspapers from last year. I thought back to the time when reading the morning newspaper was as important and pious to me as reading the Bible or the Quran would be for some people. Newspapers were my ‘holy book’. There were newspaper cuttings on politics, foreign policies, anti-corruption bills, nuclear energy, environment, and academics. Opinion articles comprised an altogether different set of the clutter. Those articles and stories had once informed me and inspired me to form an opinion and speak my mind.

Among the bundles of newspapers, I found an old bracelet. Embedded on it were tiny green beads of glass. It was a gift from a friend in the seventh grade. I remember her vividly. Her tall physique, fair skin, and lustrous brown hair had made her look like an Anglo-Indian though she was not one.  She was the one close friend I had in the sixth and the seventh grades. She transferred schools after the seventh grade and we lost touch. I also found two long lost journals wherein I had endlessly rhymed away. Those journals brought back memories of the time when I would get up from my bed in the middle of the night because a possible-Grammy-Award-winning-song had just popped into my head.

I got rid of the newspaper cuttings on politics and other stuff even if reading about them had once been my passion. Somehow, articles on environment and academics still found a place in my now-cleaned bookshelf.

De-cluttering makes you strong because you throw away things (often without a second thought) that once seemed to matter the most. At first, it might feel like you have fewer things now or fewer choices because the place is no longer crowded. But, suddenly that one problem you had been running away from seems to untangle on its own. 

Suddenly your writer's block flies away. Suddenly you know how to tell your boss that you want to resign. Suddenly you realize that gardening is your hobby. Suddenly you are willing to open your heart to a new love and to love fearlessly. Somehow, a cleaner bookshelf or closet makes life seem simple.

We all have the capability of de-cluttering our bookshelf, our closets, or our lives. We just need to be in the right mood. Until we are in the right mood, we will continue to dig for our favourite pair of trousers in that heap of clothes. But, the good news is if you have de-cluttered before, you will de-clutter again. If you haven’t ever, you will someday be in the right mood. The ‘right mood’ could be — running away from problems; having nothing to do; being unemployed; or going through quarter-life crisis.

Most of the time we believe what we collect is treasure. We, therefore, lock it up and bury it somewhere deep only to discover it later after some digging. Not all treasures bring cherishment when discovered; not all treasures are precious just like not all that glitters is gold.

De-cluttering teaches us that we can still survive if something is taken out of our lives, that what we think of as our oxygen is merely a fog that needs to be lifted for us to see ourselves clearly. De-cluttering also teaches us that there is sure to be at least one thing that we will choose to keep for good.

I kept the bracelet.