All too often we are stuck in the trap of evolutionary thinking. A little change here, a little change here and things will eventually get better. I’ve even been a proponent of that approach…including here on this blog. The ideal is that small changes, made over time lead to enormous improvements. This is a truism, you cut a few calories every day, do a little bit of exercise, and start acting healthier, and in a while you’ll be a brand new you. The results are always amazing.

The problem is, evolutionary thinking takes time. It often takes a lot of time. If you’re like me, you’re not great at the delayed satisfaction that an incremental approach takes. The results are certainly worth the wait, but the waiting is excruciating.

So if evolutionary thinking is based on an incremental approach, and it takes time that we don’t (or don’t want to) have…what’s another option?

Revolutionary Thinking.

I’m talking about the kind of thinking that scares the living daylights out of you. The kind of thinking that is sometimes considered impractical, over-the-top, or even reckless.

Let me give you an example.

As I’ve mentioned before, we have a large, very busy family. Saying that we’re active is such an understatement that it’s almost laughable. To manage our lives, we all have to make choices about those things that matter most to us. As a kid growing up, one of the most important things to my Mom was to have a neat, clean, and orderly home. Her choice was to make sure that everything was ordered so that our lives didn’t have clutter. Without clutter, things worked smoothly…everything in it’s place and every place for its things. Since she was a bookkeeper and a library at different times during her working life, that makes absolute sense. You talk about two jobs that perfectly fit her skill set. It was no wonder that our house was the same. We didn’t get quite so far as labeling everything, but sometimes I wonder whether that was the next logical step.

On the other hand, my wife and I have a different approach. We would like things to be neat and clean. We would even like order. But that means that we would have to compromise some of the other aspects of our lives. Exercise takes a lot of time, so some of that time would have to go. Watching the kids in sports is a huge time-eater. Cut some of that out and trade it off for house-cleaning time. Work. That eats up a bunch of time, and with our careers we can (and do) work at all times of the day and night. Cut back on that and we could get this house whipped into shape. Make a few changes here, allocate some time different there, and little by little the house will look like Mary Poppins is in charge.

But let’s face it, no matter how much laundry we do, there will be more clothes tomorrow. The darned kids expect to eat three, four, five meals a day, every darned stinking day. Mail will keep arriving. Things will need repaired. Newspapers will continue to stack up. So no matter how much we improve incrementally, there will still be more to do tomorrow. A little bit of change will help, and over time we may be able to conquer this problem. Evolutionary thinking (and actions) got us here, so evolutionary thinking should be able to get us out. Unfortunately, our spiral into the mess (both figurative and literal) that we current have took a long time. I just don’t see how it’s going to get fixed faster than it took to get us to this point. We’ve been married 26 years and had kids for 24 years. If I wait that long to have everything sorted out I’ll be way, way too old to enjoy the newfound organization. But…there’s nothing I can do, I just need to get everybody pulling their figurative oars the same way and we’ll make little improvements everyday.

Really? Yup, I’ve said it over and over. I’ve gotten caught in that evolutionary thinking. I’ve tried method after plan after exercise. We’ve made progress, only to slip back under the load of the new stuff that finds its way into our homes, the new tasks that need to be done, and the new experiences that are crying out for our attention.

So for several months I’ve ween wallowing in my pit of self-pity, eating my snickers bars (fun size, because you can eat a lot more of those and not feel as guilty…they’re “fun” you know!), and basically watching the house go to crap. Again.

So 60 days ago I started this blog. I mean, if I’m already in over my head, why not add something to the plate. Once you’re underwater it’s only a matter of time until you either surface or drown. Why not speed up the tipping point? So I added more work to my already hectic life. It seemed like the obvious, logical thing to do.

Understand that once I make a commitment to something, I hate to let people down. I mean, I don’t just dislike it. I hate it. HATE IT. It makes me feel like a total failure and the worst person on the planet. So if I commit to something, I’m at it 100%. All the time. No let up. I don’t post the time that my blogs are written for a reason. You would think I’m crazy. You would actually get a sense of how truly hectic my life is. I’ve now written 30 blogs and I think I’ve written during every hour on the clock. I’m not joking, stuff pops into my head and I’m at the computer in an instant. So I’ve made this commitment to you that I’ll get these posts out three times a week, on Tuesday, Thursday and on the weekend (Saturday usually, but I won’t commit to that specific day quite yet, so you may see Saturday or Sunday). I’ve toyed with more frequent posting, but I’m fighting that temptation right now.

So I made this totally nutso choice to start a blog when I’ve got so many other things going on. Like I said, it seemed like the obvious, logical thing to do. At least in my twisted way of looking at things.

And the funny things was…it turned out to actually be obvious and logical. Ironically, this sort of revolutionary thinking…add more work to the breaking point…has turned out to be really helpful to me. Not only am I getting blog posts written, but I’m making progress in several other projects that will roll out before year’s end. The house, while not immaculate, has had moments of improvement that are noticeable. I’ve taken the time to interact with my diaspora children in Maine, Colorado, Iowa, and New York to a much greater degree than previously. I’ve sat at the dinner table while one or more of the kids have been doing homework and just talked about whatever was on their mind.

I’m even making progress on washing/drying/folding the loads of laundry that go through this house. I’m working towards getting out of the bad habit of washing/drying/piling that I’ve gotten into. I’ve even washed some pots and pans after using them.

In a way, it sounds like evolutionary progress. At one level it is. Some small things have been made better. But that’s just the surface or exterior that everybody sees. The biggest change is what’s been going on in my head. My thinking has actually changed. I’m not just looking at tiny fixes and improvements anymore. I’m looking at ways to shake the tree at the roots, not just at the branches.

For instance, I started to actually get rid of a bunch of stuff. I use the term “stuff” specifically to refer to all the various types of things that I have a tendency to collect. Magazines. Books. Newspapers. Computer cables. Computers. Old cell phones. Pens. Old cameras. I once had an English teacher who freaked out whenever we used the word “stuff” in a paper. She would always say “you have to be more specific”. But in this case, I am being specific. I’m talking about all the things that don’t really need to have a place. I’m talking about places that don’t need to have stuff in them.

For me, that’s revolutionary thinking. Rather than being packed to the gills, stacked to the knees, and navigating around tottering piles…life can be a little bit more about order. But to keep things ordered and not give up all the other things that I want to do, I discovered that I need to get rid of stuff. The equation actually seemed pretty simple, and came to me in a revolutionary moment. I could keep moving forwards with the same amount of stuff, have the same commitments to the things that I want to do, and have the same level of underlying anxiety that I’ve had for as long as I can remember. That was one approach, and based on my long-term use of that approach, it had some validity.

Alternatively, I could change one of those three things (stuff, commitments, or anxiety) and see how the equation changed. I’ve tried to reduce my anxiety in the past through external and internal means. I’ve done the meditation thing. I’ve tried exercise as release. I’ve taken all kinds of actions to reduce my anxiety, but nothing really worked for long. I’ve tried to reduce my commitments. To some extent I’ve succeeded. But I’m not willing to give up the support of the kids, especially at their sporting events. I’ve tried it and the end result was an increase in anxiety.

So that left me with trying to approach my stuff. My evolutionary thinking had been to get rid of a little at a time. But new stuff kept arriving. I really wasn’t making any headway. But then the thought hit me that I need to be ruthless. If the particular stuff at hand isn’t service a specific purpose, within a reasonable timeframe, then somebody else should get the opportunity to use that stuff. This was a revolutionary change in focus for me.

When you’re a packrat, from a family of hyper-organized packrats, this is a HUGE change. There is such a thing as too much stuff. Mind blowing! Maybe not to you, but certainly to me.

So now all my stuff is being analyzed. It’s utility is being measured. And decision are being made as to whether to donate, store, or pitch. If it’s being stored, it’s being labeled, grouped with like stuff, and put in a logical permanent storage place.

I’ll admit, I’m not too far into the revolution yet. I’m feeling the tug back to my former lazy ways, but I’ve been able to fight it. And now, I’ve held myself up as an example to you as somebody who can not only think in a revolutionary way, but also act in a revolutionary way. That to me is a commitment. And as I said before, I’m all about commitments.

So I’ll admit it. I got you to read all the way to the end of this post just to use you as the other party in my commitment to get rid of my stuff. To simplify my life. To change for the better.

I know, it was kind of sly. I’d say I’m sorry…but I’m not. Because you see…I’m hoping that you’ll learn something from this. I’m hoping that you can learn that all the assumptions that we live under, all the premises that we use, all the ideas that we base our lives on are worth re-examining. Way back in blog post #10 – Holding Invisible Horses, I talked about assessing the things that you were doing as a first step to changing for the better. Now I’ve gone one step farther and opened up the door to assessing more about your life. I’m looking at the stuff that I have and assessing whether having 50 old computer power cables is really making my life better.

How about you, what revolutionary thinking are you willing to try to make your life better?