Order out of Chaos ... or not

Gretchen Rubin, the author of The Happiness Project says several times in her book and often in her blog that “outer order contributes to inner calm … probably more than it should.” I’m sure that is true, but I don’t know that I ever had a sense that my house was in order in the almost nine years I have lived here. The opposite is definitely true — that outer disorder contributes to inner chaos … and confusion … and frustration … and misplaced anger …

The disorder in my house is definitely a major source of stress for me. I have even been known to have major emotional meltdowns a day or two after my Real Simple magazine arrives in the mail. Just seeing those glossy photos of perfectly organized, airy, beautiful rooms apparently can make me snap and lash out in misdirected anger at any husband, kid, or pet who crosses my path. I’m not mad at them, I’m mad at the mess.

I feel kind of guilty complaining about this. It seems like such a whiny, “first world” kind of problem. There are far bigger problems to have than having more stuff than you know what to do with. However … those pictures of beautifully organized rooms with all the matching storage bins … sigh. Oh, but the irony of running out to the Container Store to buy storage units to hold all the stuff I didn’t need to buy in the first place.

So I don’t buy them (or I do, and don’t really use them) or I read articles about how to have an organized home, or watch videos about how to purge my belongings into what to keep, toss, or donate.  Or I bitch and whine and complain about what a mess my house is. But I do very little about it. I feel like I can clean all day and then the kids get home and the house is instantly in disarray. So I yell at my kids for not picking up after themselves. Ugh.

A lot of the clutter around my house represents different projects in various stages of completion. That should be a good thing — the evidence of the creative process. But it really just looks like a big mess. I feel like all the unfinished or abandoned projects just suck the energy right out of me. All the clutter I see is just the visual evidence of all the things I want to do that I have not done.  What I want that is not happening.  I don’t want order and organization for its own sake. What I really want the inner calm that the outer order will bring. I probably won’t find that at the Container Store.