A couple of friends and family members (well, actually only 2 people total…you know who you are!) have asked me why I am not continuing to write even though I’m no longer living in Boston. Several question/answers occur to me in response to this question…Lack of inspiration? Less free time? Winter doldrums? As valid as I can convince myself that these arguments are, they really are no excuse for me not to continue writing since it is something I love to do no matter where I am or how I’m feeling. So, now that I have overcome the holiday writer’s block that ensued after my big move back from Boston to the South and in consideration of the fact that maybe the worst part of winter is behind us (we got a couple of 70 degree days down here a couple weekends ago, but it did snow 1” again last night!), I will commence to entertaining and boring you all simultaneously with my lengthy prose that may or may not be inspired by real people, places and events…
The topic of this blog occurred to me last week while I was going through a giant stack of mail I have been hording for months now. Obviously, none of this mail was time sensitive since some of it had actually managed to move with me to Boston, live there peacefully in a brown-paper grocery sack in the closet and then survive the move back to Georgia. The very same day, I received a phone call from my mom asking me for help in locating some papers that she and I had worked on and filed sometime back in October. My own frustration with sifting through my terribly boring personal stash of financial information and dated mail along with my mother’s frantic desperation to locate some “important” document left me asking myself the question: will all of this endless supply of ‘unthrowawayable’ paper be the death of us all?
Other than around April 15th of every year, most of this hoarded information is completely irrelevant to our lives, especially since most financial records from at least the last 3 years are available online through our banks and credit institutions. Why then have I been infected with this traditional wisdom of keeping track of every transaction, every exchange & every memorandum sent my way for at least 5 years? I know I have friends, who less tedious with their personal records, completely ignore this advice & some who do not even bother to file taxes (we all know this will catch up to them eventually, it’s just a matter of how much bureaucratic time it will take…) But still, I believe for most responsible adults, this ever present need to keep paper files of everything is just a part of our daily lives and a nuisance that we have resigned ourselves to put up with.
I envision and have nightmares of the day, when, like my grandparents’ homes, my house will contain 2-3 filing cabinets in the office, a couple in the garage and if I’m lucky maybe 1-2 out in a woodshed or barn as well…all filled to the brim with obsolete papers that my ancestors will have to sort through and shred, burn or just throw away. Is the IRS to blame for this laughable state of affairs in every homestead in every town throughout this country? Is our inconceivably complicated tax-code with its loopholes, limits & liabilities the cause of me having to rent a separate U-Haul to lug all of this around with me every time I move? Ok, I exaggerate a little, but really, how much time do we spend worrying about where we put this or that piece of mail, having to go through these or those papers, and keeping records of every little transaction we process in order to “write it off.”
As I try to get organized in my new home & get ready for another inevitable move later in the year, I’m in the process of trying to minimize the amount of junk that I carry with me everywhere I go. I believe there is a direct correlation in my life between material organization and personal contentment and freedom. The less I have to worry about materially, the more open I am to enjoy the people and places around me. In the timeless Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about the simplicity of life & asks us to consider how the birds live, carefree and unencumbered by daily worries (verses 19-34). If this mess of papers, financials, documents & files does not fall under the category of the things we worry about in life for most of us, I would be surprised. I believe that I ‘all my worries will not add a single moment to my life,’ but I’m not so sure they won’t take away years from it as well! I do hope that when I go, the determined cause of death will not be…PAPER!
