Facing clutter-overload.
We’ve all got so much stuff going on. Stuff at work, stuff at home, relationship stuff, family stuff, money stuff, health stuff. So much stuff. In fact, it seems like most of the time we are just hanging on, getting by, doing what we need to do to stay afloat, sorting through or simply drowning in all the stuff we have to deal with. It’s very hard to find a way out, to find a new perspective when we’re constantly surrounded by all our own and other people’s stuff.
When I lived in Sri Lanka volunteering in the rural town of Monaragala, I had a little friend called Thanuja. She was 7 years old. She called me Suddu Aya – white brother. I was the first white person she had ever met. She had only one dress, a turquoise number with lacy frills, which had faded in the sun and had actually turned rather brown through months of wear and tear. Yet she wore it as if she were going to receive the prize for Best Actress at the Oscars. She had half a pencil, a workbook, a small plastic horse, just enough food to keep her stomach from complaining. Her life wasn't easy yet it seemed to me like she hardly had any ‘stuff.’ What she did have, however, was the biggest smile and sparkly eyes I’ve ever seen.
A change of latitude can change your attitude.
Stepping out of my crazy little bubble, finding the time to connect to people from other cultures, seeing how others live, and live with so little, all gave me the chance to gain perspective on my life, to simplify, to sort through all my stuff and go back to my job and relationships and issues with more clarity, appreciation and the ability to float a little more and surf the waves of life, rather than just tread water to keep my head above the surface.
Although I came back to the same job, relationships, issues and most of my old ‘stuff’ – I came back as a different person, more free, more open and with a new perspective on my life which made it all a little less ….. ‘Stuffy.’
Rabbi Dov Ber Cohen is Justifi's Director of Education and also spent the better part of his 20s traveling, volunteering, and training in martial arts in Asia before moving to Israel and getting his spiritual black-belt in Judaism. See his bio here: http://www.justifi.org/dov-ber-cohen