While walking through the desert hills of Phoenix this weekend, I loved spotting cactus. I'm mesmerized by these spiky wild looking trees!
It made me think that what's most satisfying is to truly experience something. We're present with the experience. There's a connection.
Remember the experience of seeing a really good play, movie or concert. There was nothing but you and the event.
Everything that's in our life began with an experience. There's the moment we first saw it. It captured our attention. We wanted to continue this experience, and we brought it home.
Some experiences stay experiences. They remain exciting and interesting to us. We are in love with these things. I feel this way about my guitars. Every time I play them, I can't believe I'm so lucky.
Other times the experience of this thing over time loses some of its luster for us, though it still remains useful. We continue to have a connection with this thing. For me, this is my iphone. It's no longer exciting, but it makes my everyday life a lot simpler.
With most things, there's a point when the connection with the experience wears off altogether. We don't use it. We don't notice it. It lives as part of a pile, a file, in a box or storage locker, in the back of a closet, or it's lost somewhere in our homes. We are too distracted by things that are still strong experiences to notice or do any thing about this other stuff.
When clutter busting, we're looking for those things that are no longer actual and true experiences for us. That's why I encourage asking, "Do I use this? Do I love this? Is it part of my life? Would I buy this if I were in a store today?" We're looking to see if our experience of this thing is alive in us. Or if it's gone.
We want to notice and remove the things we no longer have that experiential connection with because they make us tired, irritable, and uncomfortable in our own homes. When they go, we are that much more present for the things we love, and for what takes care of us.
