Mindfulness
is the capacity to be aware of what is going on and what is there.  With the energy of mindfulness, we touch the present moment deeply and realise that there are many wonderful things around and within us.  We realise that we already have plenty of conditions to be happy in the here and now.  The blue sky, sunshine, trees, flowers, singing birds, the laughters of kids, the smiles of your loved ones, and many simple things in life are miracles!  We cherish what we have in the here and now, and we no longer need to seek happiness somewhere else.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Clean up the clutter!

Documents, files, books, magazines, cables, gifts, photos, CDs, food, etc, etc...
I take a good look at the 4 storage cabinets filled with stuff that I accumulated over 6 years of my stay in the Beijing office.  There is something called "store and forget".  I rarely touch many of those things.

Taking a deep breathe, I plan my action. Cleaning up clutter can be very exhausting, and I have to make sure I do not strain my injured back further.  Divide and conquer is my strategy.  I decide to complete the project in 3 days.  Each day, I would spend less than 1 hour, but I would do a really good job in relinquishing things that I do not use anymore.

I stick on to the principle: any thing I have not used for the past 6 months, I would recycle, give or throw away. I do have hesitation on several gift items from old friends and colleagues.  After some inner struggle, I convince myself that I treasure the friendship regardless of these gifts.  So I also give them away.  After 3 days, I complete my project on schedule. Now my belongings occupy less than 1 storage cabinet!

Yuhoo!  I feel so free! :)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I have been using an aging strategy to throw away things, however, I need something to hold on memory so I bought a one terra byte disk to store my junk. Life without memory will be meaningless.