The best tip my parents gave me and I didn´t give a f*ck… until now.

Life experiment No. 1

I’m not a person that regrets much about what I do (or don’t do). In fact, when somebody ask me about it, I tend to say “No, I regret nothing”. And that was a true thing until last year. There is, indeed, something I do regret, but didn’t give a f*ck until now.

There’s this memory of my parents entering into my bedroom and telling me rather annoyed: “Clean this mess up! Be organized, for Christ sake!”. Of course, I didn’t know by then that this would be one of the best things I could ever learn from them.

And there’s always the cliché thought that a creative person does not need to be that organized anyways… well, this happened to be just bullshit.

Yup, maybe we have a hard time putting things on the right place, or at least the “right” place in the eyes of society or whatever, but that doesn’t mean we have free ticket to live like pigs without life’s consequences.

One of the biggest issues was that I actually considered not applying to jobs outside my city because of the insecurity of leaving my things or the laziness of moving them to another place.

Also, when trying to focus for a task at home, I just couldn’t because of the stress of seeing such chaos. I always made an effort to clean it right away, but lost precious time for my main project, and that made me feel even more stressed than before. It was a truly vicious cycle.

The peak of it was last year. I had three months of compulsive shopping disease. One of the symptoms of false success. When I realized this, every object and material “good” started to make me feel sick. After my epiphany I have spent another six months trying to get rid of almost every single thing I own, unless this is absolutely functional and beautifully designed.

When you start doing this, there’s a point you reach in which you feel you still have too many non-valuable things. You gain more confidence in yourself and start getting rid of all that weight, in a cold-hearted manner.

This object-detox sounds easier than putting it into action, specially for someone born and raised in such a nostalgic culture. Here in México, it is seen as something very rude when someone doesn’t take that centerpiece at a wedding or baby shower, or you don’t exhibit at your living room the “recuerdito” (souvenir) from a baptism, “quince años” (sweet sixteen), or some kitsch keychain or magnet someone brought you from her/his trip to a (not so exotic) beach, or Europe.

The good news are the same as every sudden realization of a life-destructing habit: it’s never too late to start cleaning your soul from objects and giving that space to your mind and body.

Maybe it’s too simplistic to write them in just 5 tips to achieve this, but I hope it is useful to you. Just remember it’s closer to a psychological, emotional, inner process rather than a just beautifying, organizing, external one.

1. Avoid boxes, deep drawers and containers: Having things hidden will make you forget about them… and accumulate more than you actually need for life to keep going. Also, they are a huge temptation to put every thingamabob in it.
2. If it is really useful (and beautiful), make it one of its kind at home: You know, that special bowl in which you love to eat cereal, chinese food and that rice recipe experiment; and no matter how many other bowls you have, you will keep eating in that single one. Five words: get rid of the rest.
3. Put everything back in its place after using it: Assign a place for each object. When you use it, put it back again where it belongs. (I still have a difficult time with this one, but I’ll keep trying until it becomes an habit).
4. There’s no “someday” in objects’ language: You are holding that strange piece of plastic and you don´t know where it came from or what its purpose is. Just throw it away. There’s no “someday”. If it’s broken, say goodbye. The truth is that if you didn’t repaired it right away after broken, it’s not that crucial for your life after all.
5. Be a cup of tea just for yourself: Don’t fall into society’s trap of trying to make everyone happy if this means burying yourself below a pile of unwanted things. Let life surround you just with few and amazingly designed objects.