“Life doesn’t begin at twenty, forty or sixty-five, when you get married, when you get promoted, or when you have grandkids–life truly begins when you discover how flexible and free you are without clutter.” That’s not true! I am a clutter bug and I have a life!
Did you feel like somebody was narrating your life when you were reading the questions above? If yes, you are a clutter bug, just like me! Maybe now, you are questioning yourself, “Am I a clutter bug?” Well, don’t panic! I have questioned myself a thousand times before when my mother persistently asked me to clear up my room almost every day of my life. Who admits to being one? You know you are a clutter bug when you just can’t help yourself and bring home more clutter to add to your accumulation of stuff at home.
Going back to the days when I was younger, my sister was the biggest clutter bug on earth! We shared the same room and my portion was always clean as I had inherited the clean freak gene from my father. I felt like I was on top of the world when my mother told relatives how clean I was, until I grew older and the clutter bug took over my life. I tried to deny it for a couple of months, but later, I got used to the dirt, mess and unmanaged things around me. From the empty coffee cups, stray CDs, tubes of Chap Stick, assorted magazines, clean laundry, receipts, hair dryer and shoes. I told my mother stories about how the clutter fairy stopped by my room and plied her trade in the most insidious of ways but she never believed them.
You must be thinking, “How does this clutter start?” Well, it starts with a sticky note, and then evolves into boxes here, stuff there. Pretty soon, it’s taken over and one small sticky note is a pile of stuff. Then, just when you least expect it, you discover that the clutter bug is running amuck, all over your home and office. But do not fret much, you aren’t alone. There is even a group on facebook dedicated to clutter bugs like us, millions of us. Well, why doesn’t my mother understand that? She sneaks into my room cleaning up the whole mess. That makes my room look clean and it smells nice, I admit that, but I can’t find anything. Nothing at all, because she has either dumped it or kept it in an organized way somewhere.
If you have ever watched the popular tv series, “Clean House”, you will get to see some very fine examples of clutter bugs. Some are even nominated for the “messiest house in America”. While the show is very entertaining and even pokes fun at hoarding, the behavior can be a symptom of a serious problem. Individuals who hoard often feel the need to collect and save things that the rest of us would discard. Additionally, they will feel a stronger need than the rest of us to lay in a stockpile of “needed” items. They’ll cruise yard sales, go through other people’s trash, and even dumpster dive. I found that being messy is caused by a contagious disease called hoarding which is an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). I told my parents about the dangerous disease I had acquired that forced me to stay dirty and messy. But my dad, who is a clean freak, was worried and did some research on the dangerous disease his little daughter had acquired. He passed me down a link which said that it wasn’t the hoarding that brought along untidiness with me but that I was a lazy bum! I read the article and found that four out of every five clutter bugs made that excuse, so that was lame.
Now that all my excuses were busted and I was no longer a patient of an infectious disease, I had no way out but to listen to my mother’s orders. Well I did not get any major transformation and my room is still littered with objects and the piles of laundry tucked in the corners and my bed is never made, and my mother still screams out loud for not having cleaned my room when the guests are arriving. Just what are you thinking, why do I need to clean my room when the guests are arriving? But giving it a second thought, keeping my room free from clutter would prevent me from stumbling around mumbling excuses about how the alien captured my room and is full of poisonous air or crawl right under the couch and eat dust bunnies. I think it’s ok to have a little clutter once in awhile. After all, it’s your house not an art museum! But our mothers are so tempted to sneak into our rooms and clean it! That is something the clutter bugs hate because when someone else shuffles your things, they get lost. What’s worse, you can’t find anything when you need it and it’s back to square one, looking for that lost piece of earring and after finding it realizing the state your room is in again. So, if you are living with a clutter bug, let them clean it up on their own if they don’t try adapting to the environment.
But, we all have busy weeks, and get distracted with other stuff and start drifting out of our normal routines. I am not the guru for de-cluttering but I got some helpful tips from my mother, and these do help when there is somebody visiting your room. Well, this doesn’t mean that I don’t have a little backslide once in a while.
- Are you reluctant to toss out old newspapers and magazines because you might want to read them someday when you have time?
- Do you get frustrated daily because you can’t find things?
- Do you regularly misplace your keys, glasses or wallet?
- Do you dread opening a closet door, for fear that something may slide or roll off a shelf and land on your head?
- Do you keep outfits that you haven’t worn in years and hope you might fit into them again once you lose the excess pounds?
Did you feel like somebody was narrating your life when you were reading the questions above? If yes, you are a clutter bug, just like me! Maybe now, you are questioning yourself, “Am I a clutter bug?” Well, don’t panic! I have questioned myself a thousand times before when my mother persistently asked me to clear up my room almost every day of my life. Who admits to being one? You know you are a clutter bug when you just can’t help yourself and bring home more clutter to add to your accumulation of stuff at home.
Going back to the days when I was younger, my sister was the biggest clutter bug on earth! We shared the same room and my portion was always clean as I had inherited the clean freak gene from my father. I felt like I was on top of the world when my mother told relatives how clean I was, until I grew older and the clutter bug took over my life. I tried to deny it for a couple of months, but later, I got used to the dirt, mess and unmanaged things around me. From the empty coffee cups, stray CDs, tubes of Chap Stick, assorted magazines, clean laundry, receipts, hair dryer and shoes. I told my mother stories about how the clutter fairy stopped by my room and plied her trade in the most insidious of ways but she never believed them.
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| The mess! :) |
You must be thinking, “How does this clutter start?” Well, it starts with a sticky note, and then evolves into boxes here, stuff there. Pretty soon, it’s taken over and one small sticky note is a pile of stuff. Then, just when you least expect it, you discover that the clutter bug is running amuck, all over your home and office. But do not fret much, you aren’t alone. There is even a group on facebook dedicated to clutter bugs like us, millions of us. Well, why doesn’t my mother understand that? She sneaks into my room cleaning up the whole mess. That makes my room look clean and it smells nice, I admit that, but I can’t find anything. Nothing at all, because she has either dumped it or kept it in an organized way somewhere.
If you have ever watched the popular tv series, “Clean House”, you will get to see some very fine examples of clutter bugs. Some are even nominated for the “messiest house in America”. While the show is very entertaining and even pokes fun at hoarding, the behavior can be a symptom of a serious problem. Individuals who hoard often feel the need to collect and save things that the rest of us would discard. Additionally, they will feel a stronger need than the rest of us to lay in a stockpile of “needed” items. They’ll cruise yard sales, go through other people’s trash, and even dumpster dive. I found that being messy is caused by a contagious disease called hoarding which is an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). I told my parents about the dangerous disease I had acquired that forced me to stay dirty and messy. But my dad, who is a clean freak, was worried and did some research on the dangerous disease his little daughter had acquired. He passed me down a link which said that it wasn’t the hoarding that brought along untidiness with me but that I was a lazy bum! I read the article and found that four out of every five clutter bugs made that excuse, so that was lame.
Now that all my excuses were busted and I was no longer a patient of an infectious disease, I had no way out but to listen to my mother’s orders. Well I did not get any major transformation and my room is still littered with objects and the piles of laundry tucked in the corners and my bed is never made, and my mother still screams out loud for not having cleaned my room when the guests are arriving. Just what are you thinking, why do I need to clean my room when the guests are arriving? But giving it a second thought, keeping my room free from clutter would prevent me from stumbling around mumbling excuses about how the alien captured my room and is full of poisonous air or crawl right under the couch and eat dust bunnies. I think it’s ok to have a little clutter once in awhile. After all, it’s your house not an art museum! But our mothers are so tempted to sneak into our rooms and clean it! That is something the clutter bugs hate because when someone else shuffles your things, they get lost. What’s worse, you can’t find anything when you need it and it’s back to square one, looking for that lost piece of earring and after finding it realizing the state your room is in again. So, if you are living with a clutter bug, let them clean it up on their own if they don’t try adapting to the environment.
But, we all have busy weeks, and get distracted with other stuff and start drifting out of our normal routines. I am not the guru for de-cluttering but I got some helpful tips from my mother, and these do help when there is somebody visiting your room. Well, this doesn’t mean that I don’t have a little backslide once in a while.
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