On clutter and the art of de-cluttering

How to keep your room clean

In his book 12 rules for life, Jordan Peterson states that you should ‘Clean your room’. And its a great idea. The problem is that cleaning your room isn’t a one time thing. You did clean your room. You’ve cleaned it many times in the past. But somehow, for some reason, it always, again and again, comes back to looking like this!

Clutter is the inevitable consequence of living. The more we do, the more we leave behind. How to get rid of all the things we consume is an important lesson, and there is no better teacher than biology.

We love to eat. Our brains are wired to keep looking for food, and derive pleasure from finding it and consuming it. While eating is an important part of survival, most of the GI tract is actually designed to convert what we eat into excreta, something that can be discarded. Absorb nutrition and throw the rest of the shit out. When something goes wrong with this part of eating, everything suffers.

But we view these two things differently. Eating is healthy, fanciful ,enjoyable. Pooping is embarrassing, shameful. To consume is good, to discard is bad.

When we get something new into our lives, we feel a rush of dopamine. A new amazon parcel, a new friend, a new relationship, a new TV series. But how often do we think about the discarding of it? We enter into each of these contracts under the false (often unspoken, subconscious) assumption that these new things will remain with us our entire lives. We don’t have a discarding plan. The discarding, when it does happen, is often forced, an act of violence, of desperation.

There is no more space in my cupboard anymore, so I must give away all these clothes.

I have too many books, let me donate some.

This friend and I had a huge fight, they will no longer be part of my life.

Not everything that comes into your life is meant to stay forever, but our brain does not like the idea of discarding. Hoarding brings a lot of pleasure, and so we hoard everything.

Our brains evolved to hoard. We must now learn to give away. Keeping your room clean isn’t just about organising everything in it. It is also about decluttering, constantly.