Good Riddance!

David’s essay in this month in our Productive Living newsletter is about letting go and creating space.


 

It’s time to purge.

The start of a new year is a great metaphorical event to use to enhance a critical aspect of your constructive creativity—get rid of everything that you can!

Your psyche has a certain quota of open loops and incompletions that it can tolerate, and it will unconsciously block the engagement with new material if it has reached its limit. Release some memory!

I challenge each of you reading this to test out the following hypotheses, and prove me wrong. (And if you discover that any of these work, please email me with your story, and I’ll do a post-mortem on this essay at some point with the results!)

Want more business? Get rid of all the old energy in the business you’ve done. Are there any open loops left with any of your clients? Any agreements or disagreements that have not been completed or resolved? Any agendas and communications that need to be expressed? Clean the slate.

Want more clothes? Go through your closets and storage areas and cart to the Salvation Army everything that you haven’t worn in the last 24 months. And anything that doesn’t feel or look just right when you wear it.

Want to be freer to go where you want to, when you want to, with new transportation? Clean out your glove compartments and trunks of your cars. And for heaven’s sake, get those little things fixed that have been bugging you.

Do you want more wealth? Unhook from the investments and resources that have been nagging at you to change. (And give more than you usually do to someone or something that inspires you to do so.)

Do you want to feel more useful? Hand off anything that you are under-utilizing to someone who can employ it better.

Want some new visions for your life and work? Clean up and organize your boxes of old photographs.

Want to know what to do with your life when you grow up? Start by cleaning the center drawer of your desk.

Want to trust your day-to-day, moment-to-moment decisions more? Get rid of any email backlog that is taking up real estate in your inbox.

You will have to do all this anyway, sometime. Right now don’t worry about the new. It’s coming toward you at lightning speed, no matter what. Just get the decks clear so you’re really ready to rock ‘n’ roll.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.