“We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.” ― George Orwell
Life is odd. Here's an open post inviting celebration and dancing, focused on the completion of another day's labor, with musical accompaniment to boot; and it's the one celebrating someone else that receives a deluge of comments centered around the completion of labor, celebration and dancing! Go figure. Perhaps it served as the prompt. There is little prompting me these days, and much in the way of labor to complete. It's one box at a time at the new Mhomestead.
Today, after coming up with the awareness that I am experiencing impasse, I found this:Impasse is an opportunity to look a little deeper and understand what works for us. At impasse our model—our cognitive map of life and of the way we're going to fit into it—is no longer working. We all carry a representation of the world, our work, how we do our work, and how we fit in and where we're going; and that map is always inadequate in a number of ways. It always falls short of representing dynamic, ever-changing reality. Just continuing with our usual approaches to problem-solving will not help us break through.Impasse means that we need to change our whole approach to the problem. We need to change our understanding of the problem. We have to change our repertoire of ways in which we approach life challenges.What awaits us on the other side of an impasse?A: The unknown. That's the difficulty of impasse: You don't know. The whole basis of an impasse is that you thought you knew what was going to happen next, but you didn't. What awaits us is how our life is going to open up next. It's pretty scary and also pretty exciting. The big message from an impasse is that you don't know what awaits you. But not knowing is not the bad thing that you think it is.from Feeling Stuck? Getting Past Impasse by Martha Lagasehttps://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/feeling-stuck-getting-past-impasse
For me an impasse boils down to letting fear get the best of me. The thing is to plow ahead. No thinking! Just keep going forward through the panic.
Too much thinking, with more decisions needing to be made than I currently have the energy to tackle, and an underlying fear of doing things wrong and being further stuck as part of the problem. I will summon what courage and strength remain in an attempt to plow ahead and move through the swirl of overwhelm and fear that currently has me stalled at impasse. I appreciate the encouragement. In trying to reconcile Sixty's Andrew Burgess quote on the spelling thread, I found this one by him:Life is a wretched gray Saturday, but it has to be lived through which made me smile as it replicated the "live through" theme and touched on the grayness even though the sun was out today and the air fresh enough to inspire new growth if I'd release the fear and breath. I really like the new house. I just don't want to bring in all the rest of what I brought with me, which means more letting go.
You are working on a large and difficult task. My last move was spread out over a couple of years and that made a big difference. But the same obstacles exist - what to let go of, what to keep, how to separate emotions from the objects they are attached to - very tough. Some days I would just get overwhelmed, and eventually I got out enough stuff to live. Piles of boxes sat in corners for years, then eventually I would grab one and go through it. I still have way too much stuff, but if I can't be a burden to my heirs then I am not doing it right.
We moved out of a house we raised our family and lived in for 33 years. When in doubt, throw it out. We actually donated truckloads of stuff. It's just stuff..temporal.
Thank you for the good words! Getting out enough stuff to live sounds like the way to proceed--along with breathing and letting the rest sit or go elsewhere.
Mama, My bride was finding it difficult to give stuff up. She is practical and frugal by nature but this was obviously emotional. So, I appealed to her spirituality. Let's give this stuff to people who can use it. We only sold one item that I remember, that being a treadmill. She started a daily trip to Goodwill, Salvation Army, and other charities. She then really got into it. We all have some hoarder in us. I'm at the lower end of the scale except for a few issues. One is hoarding hotel soap, shampoo, lotion, mouthwash, headphones, etc. I traveled a lot for work and would just throw them in a box when I got home. I was going to throw them out. My bride said Barbara Bush advised those are great items to donate to homeless shelter. I brought a beer case box full to St. Vincent's men's shelter. The guy at the desk was very grateful, said it would help defray costs on toiletries.
I am hearing you ND, on multiple levels. The hotel stuff I've collected is in a banker box.
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