I made a discovery yesterday. After weeks of frustration regarding my smart phone’s limited memory I realized that over 2000 email messages I thought I had deleted were still being stored in the “trash” folder under each of my five email accounts!
As discouraging as this discovery was, I was grateful to have found the source of my memory problems. Several hours and over seventy megabytes of recovered memory later, I then began the process of re-installing all the helpful and productive apps I had deleted due to limited space.
As trivial as the whole situation was to the more important things in life, it got me to thinking about what other hidden things in my life (that I had quickly tried to delete) were still lurking in my mind, heart and soul.
I realized the only way to prevent my phone’s memory from reaching its limits was to daily double delete messages from my inboxes and then from my trash folders. In the same way I acknowledged the only way to reduce the overload of stress on my life was to daily address, sort and purge those things that would inevitably fill me up to the point of overload.
I could unsubscribe to daily updates of negative thoughts. I should delete the accounts of pride-based reaction or perfectionist-based critisism of myself and others. Instead of moving an unwanted task to another pile, I needed to deal with it then and there or make sure it went out with the trash.
These daily, intentional steps will keep my mind free of clutter and my heart and soul open to receive only that which is good and true and uplifting and positive.
In return I hope to choose my words and actions in ways that will overflow the same unto others I interact with on a daily basis. I hope to fill their “inboxes” only with what they will want to hold onto, and nothing they will want to delete and then trash later when it only serves as an unproductive distraction that holds them down instead of lifts them up.
What about you? Do you often put off eliminating the clutter? Have you attempted to remove unwanted thoughts or things from your life only to discover they have just moved from your head to your heart? What good and positive things could you add back into your life once you release yourself completely from the overload of pride, criticism or perfectionism?