Zen and the Trash Can (or Recycle Bin)

Big News: In the last week, I threw away some papers.

Please, please HOLD YOUR APPLAUSE. 

Literal holding of Applause. Heehee.

These were Papers of Significance. 

Ok, so I am a historian by vocation, and I see most papers as papers of significance. 

Side thought, I wonder if you can be a historian AND a minimalist? I doubt it. I wonder if your scholarly work centered on minimalists, would you need to approach that in a minimalist way?  Would your library notes be perfectly organized, no post-its or highlighters or random jotted envelope backs with insights shoved in a file? I doubt it, I think you’d have files and diagrams and notebooks full of notes and pictures in digital and paper folders and information galore.  It would be a great Irony…an abundance of material to study people who eschew abundance of material things…

ANYWAY:  I threw away papers that I once deemed important because of how much they bothered me. 

I know, wait, what? They were … irksome? 

Yes. Yes they were.

And….this was a challenge??

Yes. Yes it was. 

Seriously—this was a metanoia moment for me, a massive mindset change.  I share it because maybe you have this sort of moment, too. 

I tend to hoard anything that in my estimation contributes to memory. I feel a compulsive need to preserve things, anything that encapsulates a particular event, moment, etc.  Certainly this tendency was exacerbated by my child’s catastrophic illness, when I felt that things might someday be all I had left…but I held on to stuff well before 2004.

As a history teacher, this is handy, I have some great primary sources—daily newspapers from September 11, 2001 through September 17, 2001…you can see how that trauma unfolded in real time, which forms a fascinating counterpoint to hindsight.

But there is a negative flip side to this. I have a habit of saving EVERYTHING because documentation is  important, etc.  I save letters, memos, notes from things that frankly make me insane. Because in my mind, these documents are evidence of why my indignation and frustration were uber righteous.  Literal piles of papers that sabotage my ongoing attempts to find zen.

Yeah. I know. This seems nonsensical.

I have had notes from meetings, etc. where I literally wrote angry side commentary throughout. Therapeutic in the moment, but not so healthy years later. One look at my “lies, lies, and more lies” commentary in the margins of meeting agendas and I am back in that less than zen moment. 

Frankly, this is ridiculous. WHY DID I HOLD ON TO THIS STUFF?

I had to let the papers go.

If you are now singing “Let those papers go!” to the tune of the old spiritual, Let my people go, you are welcome.  Especially if you are hearing it in your head in the voice of Brian Stokes Mitchell or Paul Robeson. You are welcome. 

Bonus: you can hear Paul Robeson sing that if you click here. YOU ARE WELCOME.

Anyway, it took a moment, this discarding. I had to skim the document in my hand, feel that wave of disgust and anger that document always creates, and then I tossed it. I kept going, I threw away more papers, letters and such that contributed a LOT to my dismay, frustration, and sense of institutional injustice over a period of several years.  Until now, I have not been able to do that. But I need to be free.

Random side note: I am a hard core recycler. For my mind’s ease these documents needed to be ripped up and discarded, back unto the earth from which their tree of origin came. But normally—RECYCLE!!

Totally a teeny tiny slo-mo change kind of moment, but I am claiming it. Cue Chariots of Fire theme…Amen, alleluia. Being in the present (yikes, need to tidy here) versus wallowing in the past.  

I can’t purge EVERY negative paper. I will never get rid of the scribbled notes from my daughter’s diagnosis day, the failed chemo notes, the miscellaneous hospital crafts, etc. These papers hold hard memories, but they are G’s and ours, and they remind me of how mighty my kid is. They are history that needs to be remembered.

But papers that reinforce negative memories from situations I CAN step away from, I did step away from? Why save those? 

WHY THE HECK HAVE I SAVED THOSE?

I know I still have more papers like this squirrelled away in files. 

I have to close my own darn mental trap door to the chute o’ dismay, in lieu of other sorts of closure. I can only control my response to things—not what generated that response.

 I close that door by letting go of the papers that hold the meat of a whole lot of frustration, disappointment, and in some cases betrayal. Shut the door already.

To paraphrase Marie Kondo, these things did the opposite of “spark joy”. They sparked something alright, something between indigestion and extreme Jersey-girlitis. Tall shoes wearing/scary lady/you can’t handle the truth-itis. 

Yeah, it’s like that. 

When I threw that paper away, I actually felt freedom.  I am past those frustrations. Thank you, next. 

Yes, I just quoted Ariana Grande. Ay caramba. What is going on here? FIRST TIDYING, THEN RANDOM AG QUOTES? Prepare for the Riders of the Apocalypse!

(Although technically, the quote should have been Thank U, Next. But "You" is only 3 letters. Why weirdly shorten that? Discuss). 

Move forward.

It’s part of the practice. I may need to practice this one lousy paper at a time—but I know it can be done. I have started--and I hope I can build momentum and continue to dig myself free.

 Do you have any things like this? Physical objects that lurk in the drawers or closets in your house, things that will make you happier if they go far away, to that great recycling pile in the sky? What sorts of literal things do you need to let go of to be your most peaceful, best self? 

Let those old things GO. And let's keep movin' right along. :)