A Tale

You may have a person like Jeannie in your life: always losing her car keys, always late (and making jokes about it), retracing her steps when running errands, forgetting to pay a bill. Once in a while, she says she “absolutely must get organized.”

Because we love her so much, we tried to help, bought her a new book entitled (duh) Getting Organized, reminded her about the doctor’s appointment. But when we looked closer, we had to admit that she basically enjoyed the mayhem; it was fun, and distracted her from something she didn’t want to experience. In other words, the real source of her disorganization was ‑ for want of a better term ‑ a pay-off of some kind; she felt it helped her get something she wanted or avoid something she didn’t. Everything about getting organized had always been a band-aid that came unglued in a day or two. She needed to pay a visit to her dark basement and look around.

The Tale Wagged

Maybe your Jeannie fears losing her youth, or not pleasing her husband, or becoming her mother’s clone — it’s different for each person. And of course, Jeannie may be you.

When confusion becomes a habit, maybe I’d better prick up my ears to name those subterranean rumblings. If I already find myself in the basement anyway, why not look around, get a better picture of what's bugging me all the time?

I can’t give peace to my friends, my spouse, my children, if I don’t have it myself, what with all those troubling noises coming from under the floor.

For years, I was addicted to the nervous high of being late. Granted, life often got pretty ugly, but that was outweighed by the tremendous energy generated by trying to cram in one more errand.

Now, I notice that I’m going out of my way to arrive early. I don’t like the feeling of running it to the wire, of “keeping the front tire on the yellow line.” I’m beginning to prefer a different kind of energy to the old high.

Yeah, but how do we put it into practice?

Echoes

There is more that is right with you
than is wrong with you.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Full Catastrophe Living

Getting organized is seldom attained by hanging a key rack near the front door, or buying another filing cabinet. Unless the confusion is tracked down to its hiding place, the key rack either won’t get used or if it does, the panic will just pop up in some new place.