I spent my time totally cleaning out my desk top and all
of its drawers then totally reorganizing where everything goes
in said drawers. While cleaning out my desk I found papers from 6th and seventh
grade, hundreds of pens and piles of random knick knacks collect over
the years that had been thrown into a drawer and left to collect dust. By the
end I had a trash can full of stuff that I did not
even remember getting and a usable desk for the first time in
months.
Before the
work there was apprehension knowing that the task ahead of me was a
rather large one. It took several hours of procrastination before the
combination of no good things on TV and only purple links on Reddit
made me get off the couch and actually do the work.
The work started
slowly and started with the desk top which had become a display shelf for
trinkets that I gathered through 18 years of life. I went through all of them
and separated them into three groups, keep, donate, and trash. After I
had all of them in their respected groups I performed the
action assigned to the group. The ones which I kept
were rearranged on the desk and I moved onto the drawers where I
performed the same group process with all the junk in them.
When I started on
the drawers my mind entered a sense of calm. All of my
problems moved onto the back burners and the task at hand took
priority. It was as if I entered an autopilot mode and needed to
complete the task.
After I finished
fully reorganizing the desk the sense of calm stayed with me for a
while after. There was also a sense of pride and accomplishment that
came with a job well done. When I clean I usually do a rushed half assed job to
get it done, I rarely put the effort in to do a good job when
cleaning. This feeling made me want to keep it clean as well so my
work lasted longer as well.
My mind
felt cleansed after I finished with my cleaning as if in cleaning the
desk my mind was cleaned along with it. Like I mentioned before it was a very
calm state after finishing.
I learned by
cleaning the desk that a lot of the little things I hang onto both
material and metaphysical do not mean as much as I thought they did. There was
a good deal that I throughout without a second thought. I have always been
a collector and held onto things that I thought were important but
now I am trying to let go of more and take in less
I totally understand how you felt here. The same thing happened to me when doing this activity. You said the feeling of pride and accomplishment made you want to keep your desk clean from now on. I think thats one of the greatest things that can come from this activity. It gave you new eyes and taught you something new.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your post about cleaning your desk and your "autopilot mode". It seems whenever we are doing something that we are engaged in, we must attempt to finish it because we are giving it 100% concentration. I agree with you because whenever I am in the middle of something, I give it my undivided attention. I will not be able to divert my attention until the task at hand is complete. Similarly,whenever I go through my task from time to time, I find 2 year old things that I didn't even recall having. However, some of these things continue to remain with my memories.
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