Don't feel bad

For those of you who are looking at your homes, offices and lives and feeling sad and overwhelmed, I just want to say this:

No matter how bad you feel about your lack of organization at any given time, you can't let it define you. Who you are is such a complex thing. You're so many things to so many people. Clutter isn't terminal, it isn't permanent. And it can't erase all that you have to offer.

Your circumstances may be exhausting -- maybe you're a new parent, maybe you have a job that takes the majority of your time and brain space, maybe your house is too big to manage. But none of those things have real power, because at any point, if you don't like what you see, you can make it different.

That's the beauty of human nature. You can choose change. You can set goals and reach them. All of the successes you've had in your life are the result of work to reach a goal. If organization is something you strive for, if your dream is uncluttered space that makes you want to invite the neighborhood over for dinner, then go for it. First you have to have a dream, then one day you wake up and say, "That's it. I'm doing it." Setting short-term goals will get you where you want to go.

Change is hard, but it's also the only doorway to becoming the person you will be in the future. It will happen through sheer will -- or it will happen without you. If you make change on your terms, you will realize how empowering it can be to set your mind on something and make it happen.

So, please. Don't stand before an abyss of clutter and feel bad about yourself. You can look at your desk, under that landfill somewhere, and feel ambivalent, annoyed or disgusted about its current status. But you can't look in the mirror and feel like a failure. Those two things just don't connect. Repeat after me: "This is not the 'me' I am. This is only trash." And trash day comes without fanfare every week.

Don't let it be more important than that.