Pandora has a great post about clearing out the clutter in your life. She writes:
Let me define clutter - it's anything that makes you unhealthy, unhappy,
uncomfortable or just plain cranky. It usually comes into your life by
invitation, but sometimes it just seeps under the door like that pesky tree dust
and you don't know it's there until you are sweeping out the debris.
This is a great concept and one that we can personally apply to our physical environment, our minds, and our relationships.
Clutter in our physical environment: This is what we normally think of when we talk about clutter. It's when the whole house starts looking like the junk drawer. Think how energy-draining it is to spend hours looking for some important document. Talk about making you cranky!
Cluttered mind: If you apply Pandora's definition here, this kind of clutter includes unhealthy religious beliefs. We can all immediately think of the unhealthy belief that has people blowing themselves and others up to somehow glorify their god.
Radical Islamists are not alone in the unhealthy-belief department, however. A common Christian one goes something like this: suffering in silence earns you a crown in heaven. This prevents you from standing up for yourself, making you take on every project you're asked to do because you're too unhealthy to say "no," and generally being an over-burdened, martyred pain in the ass to everyone around you.
It also applies to harmful thought patterns - no one likes me, I never win, life's unfair, etc.
Relationship clutter: This could include anything from the truly harmful, like abusive spouses and toxic family members, to the merely annoying, like whiners and high-maintenance drama queens.
Clearing the clutter from one's personal life is healthy, but Pandora's post also got me to thinking about how her definition could be applied nationally (or better yet, globally.) Saaaay, we have just such an opportunity coming up in a couple of weeks, don't we?
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