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Are you as well off as you assume? I’m not talking about your bank account, the value of your home or your investments. I’m talking about the debris in your home that makes you feel prosperous. What’s that you say? You have no such items in your living space? It’s the rare human being who doesn’t! I coined the phrase ‘Fake Prosperity’ after working with clients. I came to realize that some of their possessions were in effect useless but their mere physical presence made my clients feel more secure. Let’s take a look at some of the top contenders.
Ink Spots
No, not the singing group but rather those droplets of ink you are certain reside in the 300 pens, highlighters and Sharpies you have in various cups, drawers and other storage gizmos around your home. It looks like a well-stocked home office until you realize that the majority of those items have been there a very long time. The acid test comes when you try them and find the vast majority as dry as the Sahara desert. Big box store purchases can be foolhardy if you are ‘saving money’ by purchasing more items than you can possibly use. ‘Penny wise, pound foolish’ applies equally to fresh fruit, writing tools and dairy products purchased in too large a quantity to be used up by anyone who doesn’t have a large family. If you can’t use all of it best not to buy in multiples or supersize containers!
Sale Rack Special
Have you ever noticed how neat and tidy the clothing racks are in large department stores and high-end boutiques? The more beautiful and orderly the displays the more enticing the garments appear. And then sale day arrives and no one really cares if the sizes stay together or the items get wrinkled. You’re getting a deal so you should be grateful. I find it quite overwhelming to navigate those racks myself. If your home closet is a mish mash of sizes, outdated items, worn, torn, frayed or faded goods, you may think you have quite a fashionable collection of garments. What you really have is an overcrowded space full of items that need to exit your home. The appearance of abundance and the reality of scarcity have nothing in common. Empty space frightens a lot of people so they would rather experience the chaos that crowded conditions bring than enjoy the serenity of clear space. I look at it this way: new and wonderful things can’t enter my life until I clear a place for them.
My In Box Is Full
But is it full of junk, once important newsletters, sales notices for stores you no longer frequent or messages from those who count? It happens to all of us. We’re surfing the web and chance upon something that is of interest. We spontaneously sign up for the company newsletter. And the next thing you know we wake up to over 100 e-mails! Take some time to unsubscribe! Expect feelings of loss to pop up. And above all don’t expect those sites to make it easy for you. They take you through so many hoops you feel like you’re trying to break up with someone who can’t accept the relationship is over. Once you’re done checking your mail won’t take as long or feel quite so daunting.
Food, glorious food! And other follies
That’s what the orphan boys sang in the Broadway musical Oliver! But some of my clients might sing that refrain when they enter their kitchens. It appears that an army could stop by and be fed for a month. Cupboards, the pantry, the refrigerator and the freezer are crammed full of items. But close inspection reveals that many items have long since expired. This isn’t food anyone could consume. It’s an art installation with food as its theme.
But food isn’t the only item we can hoard. Are you in one of these categories of space wasters:
• You impulsively buy lotions, potions and make up at the store. You don’t use it but you also don’t toss it even after it dries out or separates. There isn’t any room for what you need on a daily basis but the overflowing drawers somehow make you feel secure.
• Or perhaps you can’t resist the latest magazines at the checkout counter. You trust that the latest and greatest information is at your fingertips somewhere in that pile of magazines and newspaper. Of course the latest and greatest is literally at your fingertips every time you jump onto the World Wide Web.
• Imelda Marcos was known to have several thousand pairs of shoes. How many do you have? Will you wear them out in this lifetime or does looking at them give you a sense of peace? Isn’t it a bit odd to get your sense of well-being from a pair of shoes?
• Do you work in your garage every weekend or do you just enjoy cruising the home stores for more power tools? I thought I’d include that just in case you found the idea of a shoe collection to be absurd. Any outsize collection that grows like a wild virus rather than expanding in concert with demand is symptom of a deeper unease.
The Black Hole of Calcutta
You know this area well but you call it the garage. You haven’t been able to drive your car inside for years but you live in a temperate climate so why worry? The containers for the treasures you couldn’t name if your life depended on it are probably collapsing into dust. And what does all this stuff represent? You feel it’s a collection of items that tell the story of your life in this house. And maybe just maybe there’s a treasure hidden in the debris that will one day yield a fortune. The reality of course is that this is a collection of unmade decisions. That’s always the culprit when you see piles and stacks of things around your home and office. Decisions are the engine that drives the organizing machine. When you stop that process all organizing comes to a grinding halt. But take heart: making good decisions is a skill you can develop like learning a sport or how to play a musical instrument.
True Prosperity
Having what you need and making use of it represent true prosperity. When I teach my seminar I ask my students if they would like to ‘see’ their minds. No one has ever said they weren’t interested. In fact everyone gets very excited. Imagine the surprise when I tell them to open a cupboard, a drawer or closet door when they get home. What they see is a picture of how their mind works. Most of my students are horrified when I say this but I assure them it’s all subject to change. Calm the outer and the inner settles down in concert with the physical reality. Be sure you surround yourself with what you need and truly cherish. The extraneous stuff is a physical buffer against the fear that is directing your life. Let it go. Trust. And be free—not to mention truly prosperous.
