Piles and Piles and Piles

I was going through my piles of emails this morning and come across an email from Leanne Ely from Saving Dinner. Here is an excerpt:

If you missed Wednesday's Saving Dinner Show on BTR, you missed a good one! My dear friend Marla Cilley the FlyLady joined me and we chatted up a storm on what constitutes taking responsibility for yourself in all departments of life, not just food and health. Marla started talking about how we procrastinate and how we make piles of stuff all around us. I had a light bulb moment and said we need an acronym for PILE...I had the first two words, "Procrastination Is"...then we let our friends in chat go for it and the group came up with Procrastination Is Loving Excuses; or it could be Living Excuses too. I believe it was Keri that came up with that one. Don't you LOVE it?

And isn't that what happens to us? We P.I.L.E. everything from our homes, to our cars, to our jobs, to our relationships...nothing is given priority, we excuse ourselves, but no one else, we PILE on, we feel guilty and we're miserable. It's a vicious cycle that needs to end! But here's the thing--if we can start taking care of ourselves, we CAN end this insanity! It takes PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY! The payoff is amazing and the trickle down effect into the rest of your life is life changing and hugely empowering!

This really struck a chord with me because I am a "piler". That is, I pile things. Papers on my desk, stuff that needs to go to goodwill. Library books. Stuff. I pile it. I have a hard time dealing with it (although Marla Cilley from Flylady has helped a bit with this).

The inside of my house is NOT completely trashed, although I do have piles of stuff in my room. And I married a piler too. Or a packrat. Or perhaps they are one and the same. My darling husband brings things home from work all the time. Things that his company is throwing away. In his defense, the stuff he brings home is perfectly good stuff (like the 9 billion patio umbrellas he just brought home--all in working order and in perfect condition). I just don't know what to do with it. A lot of times I pull out what I want and spread the rest between family, friends, and goodwill, but what do I do with the stuff that hubby wants? It is piled around my house and on my property. It's kind of like living in a warehouse.

We do need to be responsible. The company my husband works for needs to responsibly dispose of the items they no longer want, either by distributing it to the employees or giving it to charity. Perfectly usable items should NOT end up in a landfill. I need to take ownership of my finances and paper. I need to take responsibility for my life. It is my life, after all, and I am the one who has control of it.

I sometimes feel like I am drowning in stuff. Stuff I own, stuff I want, stuff I want to do, stuff I want to start, stuff I want to finish. I have simplified some areas of my life, but others need simplifying as well. I have too much stuff.

I need to take responsibility. Responsibility for my work and my life. I am in charge. I decide which writing jobs to take and which not to take. Sometimes I hide from the world, though, and that just can't be good. It's time to take responsibility. Wish me luck...I know I am going to need it!