Before you think I am anti-material, I am not. I like stuff, but I am learning to like time even more. Maybe it is an age thing.
Have you ever had something bad happen to you because of someone or something else’s fault? Have you ever had something bad happen to you because it was your own fault? Yeah, me too. So that means literally, we are our own worst messes.
We create beautiful things, but we also create a mass of really ugly things. Mostly for ourselves. Think about it. Would we really create problems for other people, if we didn’t first have problems of our own? Jesus was flawless and he still fashioned a chord to be applied to some pious Jew rear-end in the temple. Some say he did it twice.
I just want to reflect with you for a moment on a mess you are either creating, or cleaning. The strange thing about the way we think is that, our minds seem wired to heal slowly, maybe so that we will learn to apply things more deeply. And maybe that is why we spend more time cleaning. Its sort of like we do just one stupid thing that costs us, on so many levels, and have to pay for that for a long time. I have a sense that I am still paying for things I did long ago. Just my physical body alone is saying this to me. I damage my back in the military eighteen years ago, and I am still paying for that leap off a beach pavilion roof.
So is the saying true, “Time heals all wounds?”
But I have noticed that over time, I accumulate more and more stuff. Many times buying something that I think will be soothing and healing for my wretched, poor soul. Could you be honest and say, “I have a full closet.” Is there room in my closet for one more thing? Sure there is, I’ll just cram it down in the corner of the floor board so it fits snug with my shoes till I need to drag it out and iron it. Oh, you too?
Most Americans can say their closet is full. But it seems that we just can’t buy enough to fill it. It seems we have the wardrobe leading to Narnia in our house. I am sure Mr. Tumnus is going to butt me in the leg if I cram one more pair of unworn pants in the deepest regions of my closet. He probably couldn’t do it for being covered in socks. Not to mention all that snow mixed in.
Honestly, there has been more than one moment when, because of some shoes or clothes spilling out, you couldn’t shut your closet door. And that’s just our closets. Have you seen the garage? No, I mean, have you ever been in there? I’m sure there are veloce-raptors waiting to side swipe me in there. Cause I have heard stuff out there. I own Jurassic Garage.
Let’s shrink it down a little bit now. Ever opened that clove box, or little side bin, and it’s full of stuff? How about that one drawer in your house that is full of everything you can think of? You know how they get there don’t you? If it is close to the size of our hand, then it doesn’t require a large shelf for itself, just a drawer. If we can toss it, it will one day die a lonely death in, “The DRAWER!” Now say it like a horror movie announcer. THE DRAWER! That is a deadly place for pens, glue bottles, old scratched DVDs and even finger nail polish bottles.
Then I began to reason that in almost every season, I can find myself a reason to buy more stuff, I tell myself I need. Watch out Dr. Sues.
I can justify just about anything, and if I really, really want it, I can justify a purchase. With words like, “We could sure use that.” Or “Dammit, I need that,”, and even the “I’d like to know who the inventor of that stuff was so I can kiss them and name a baby after them.”
What I have learned is that I can always make room in my closet for more. The drawers and glove compartments can be filled to overflowing with things I already have two of. The sad and lonely place this brings me is the truth that I really never have room for more, but more is what I think I need to make my life easier.
Lets imagine we have a pen in our back yard with goats running around in it. Lets say you have to give an account for those jumpy little creatures. Not every day, but every hour. If there is nothing for them to hide behind in the yard it would be fairly simple to count them. But lets say you keep adding more goats to the pen. And then more. Until finally your pen has about fifty two of those propagating little beast. I just can’t help but imagine that it was a lot easier to count them back when you had a handful. For sure a lot easier to bath and maintain clean goats. Can you imagine fifty two stinky goats in your back yard. I also imagine that even the most experienced goat herders know there is a limit to how many they can care for. I think you get the picture.
Now imagine that Gandalf shows up on a cart spitting fireworks and he turns all your goats turn into socks. Socks that require cleaning.
Let say it took me five hours to clean all my fifty two goats each day, but now it takes half that time a week to clean all my formerly goat socks. But that is still a lot of time cleaning clothes. Plus, don’t forget the fact that socks are somewhat hard to keep track of, especially if you have too many other clothing items to keep clean as well. Again, there is no room in the closet.
Something has to change if I want to spend the evenings with my family. So here is a simple thought to consider.
The less stuff we have, the easier it is to keep track of it. This in turn means less time keeping track of your socks. It means no more laundry piles. It means a cleaner environment. A healthier environment. What is so unique about this environment is that when we spend less time tracking and piling, we get to spend more time with Mom. More time with Dad, more time with the kids, more time with the grandkids.
In this environment there is a lot less of this stuff that builds what some doctors call, STRESS. Now, I know I don’t have to explain what that is. But here we go.
Stress is that thing that is a part of a series of things that uses up our time. ALL I am saying is be better managers of our time. When I heard “He needs to manage his time better!”, it always sounded like it was coming out of the drawn up mouth of my 80 year-old fourth grade teacher who hated me. So I developed an attitude toward time. Time became the nemesis of my goals. That Damn Time.
It wasn’t until later in my life that I realized I was chasing time, most of the time, it (time) was therefore by default, an enemy in my over-achieving little soul. Time was outside of me. Time had become something I never had enough of. It was just something I put behind me, while my life and heart yearned for more stuff. With the hopes that the stuff I was buying or consuming would allow me more free time, when in reality, my stuff was absorbing my time like a black hole.
Innovation is supposed to help save people’s time and energy, and I thought innovation could be found in most purchases. For example, “If I only had this ________, my life would be so much better.” Have you ever bought that thing and life only got worse? Maybe the value of our time can be measured, not by what we purchase, but by how much we share or give away.
Do you have the time today, to share with those that matter most?
Do you have the time today, to give away to someone in need of help?
Do you have the time?
I can always tell if I am in that place where my time has become more valuable than these people and things that matter most. I hear in the voice of my five year old little girl. If she has to say Dad more than three times to get my attention, then I don’t have the time to spare. What a shame.
My hope for this year is that I allow more and more of my stuff to disappear, so that I will have more time. Remember, more stuff, less time. Less stuff, more time. More on time economics later.
