Today's Post...Total Failure

We’ve all had that feeling, where our breath catches and then, spiraling downward, our stomach drops to our ankles and we know the truth.  It’s gone.  Photos, words, hard work, all encompassed into micro pieces of data, suddenly thrust into realm of unknown.  Something that was there, just mere moments ago, suddenly disappears right before our eyes.

I lost the data on my external hard drive.  Yes, it’s gone, and unrecoverable.  It failed.  Daniel tried, taking it to work and putting it through all the methods he could think of, and to no avail.  Gone are the digital scrapbooking supplies, some photos (although I lucked out with iPhoto not deleting them) and some of my writing.  Needless to say, for a moment, I lost all my senses and became completely numb.

Today, I am surprisingly calm about it.  I didn’t lose the memories that are associated with the pictures; my stash of supplies can be replaced; life will go on.  I can take more pictures; buy more supplies; and write something that may or may not be more brilliant that what I had before.  It is a chance to start fresh and look around at the digital clutter (pun totally intended) that I’m holding onto and start with a new perspective.

I need to de-clutter a lot of things in my life…my bedroom closet, the garage, the stash of dvds, books, the storage room.  There is so much ‘stuff’ that creeps into the peripheral vision of my life I ignore, mostly for convenience sake rather than blindness.  I need to eliminate useless activities, like staring at the box of other people’s ideas, otherwise known as the television.  I have found that I’m doing it a little more than I should, or even like to.  I’m not a huge fan, but I’ve entered the habit of letting someone else do the thinking for me, and I don’t like that.  Oh, it is fun occasionally to sit with a bowl of popcorn and cheer on the witty antics of a fun sitcom, or get completely involved in the crime drama of the season, but wouldn’t my time be better spent creating those stories myself?

Do you hang onto clutter?  I do.  I seriously think that there is a gene in some of us that is predisposed to horde things.  I swear it comes from knowing someone that lived through lean times, i.e. The Great Depression.  When my grandmother moved in with my parents and we cleaned out her house, we found jars of twine, rubber bands, bread sacks, and fruit that was over 25 years old, still in the glass jars she bottled it in.  While I laughed and shook my head, I had to wonder what I was holding onto that my children will shake their head at when it comes my time to clear out the clutter.

I remember hearing someone say that we are selfish when we horde things.  I never really understood that, until I thought about all the people in the world that can benefit from the clothes in my closet that I’m holding onto until I can fit into them again, or the perfectly usable bag that I keep because it’s perfectly usable, but I never use.  I love shoes.  But why keep a pair that I’ve stopped wearing?  I am sure there is someone in the world that would love my pink, taupe and lime green mules that I don’t have anything to wear with anymore.  Size 6 ½ if anyone is interested….
*Thanks to Google for the image*

What ideas do you have to de-clutter life?