Clutter Family Quotes

I often ask myself, Will anyone I know be happier if I save this?

Save your favorite dildo, but throw away the other fifteen!

The one thing we know for sure is that we will die one day. But before that you can try to do almost anything.

A love one wishes to inherit nice things from you. Not all things from you.

What I know for sure is that when you declutter – whether it’s on your home, your head, or your heart – it is astounding what will flow into that space that will enrich you, your life, and your family.

A Christmas without a book for a present is a disappointment.

You can always hope and wait for someone to want something in your home, but you cannot wait forever, and sometimes you must just give cherished things away with the wish that they end up with someone who will create new memories of their own.

Life will become more pleasant and comfortable if we get rid of some of the abundance.

Let me help make your loved ones' memories of you nice -- instead of awful.

Living smaller is a relief.

Mess is an unnecessary source of irritation.

It is amazing, and also a little strange, how many things we accumulate in a lifetime.

But the kitchen will not come into its own again until it ceases to be a status symbol and becomes again a workshop. It may be pastel. It may be ginghamed as to curtains and shining with copper like a picture in a woman's magazine. But you and I will know it chiefly by its fragrances and its clutter. At the back of the stove will sit a soup kettle, gently bubbling, one into which every day are popped leftover bones and vegetables to make stock for sauces or soup for the family. Carrots and leeks will sprawl on counters, greens in a basket. There will be something sweet-smelling twirling in a bowl and something savory baking in the oven. Cabinet doors will gape ajar and colored surfaces are likely to be littered with salt and pepper and flour and herbs and cheesecloth and pot holders and long-handled forks. It won't be neat. It won't even look efficient. but when you enter it you will feel the pulse of life throbbing from every corner. The heart of the home will have begun once again to beat.

Beautiful things such as an African wooden bird, strange things like a singing magnetic pig, and funny things like a solar-powered waving bear are all things that I adore. My vice is really things. It took me a while to understand this, but you can enjoy all these things without owning them. Even though this may sometimes seem quite hard to do, training yourself to enjoy only looking at things, instead of buying them, is very nice and also a good practice. You really can't take everything with you, so maybe it is better to not try to own it all.

While play-acting grim scenarios day in and day out may sound like a good recipe for clinical depression, it’s actually weirdly uplifting. Rehearsing for catastrophe has made me positive that I have the problem-solving skills to deal with tough situations and come out the other side smiling. For me, this has greatly reduced the mental and emotional clutter that unchecked worrying produces, those random thoughts that hijack your brain at three o’clock in the morning. While I very much hoped not to die in space, I didn’t live in fear of it, largely because I’d been made to think through the practicalities: how I’d want my family to get the news, for instance, and which astronaut I should recruit to help my wife cut through the red tape at NASA and the CSA. Before my last space flight (as with each of the earlier ones) I reviewed my will, made sure my financial affairs and taxes were in order, and did all the other things you’d do if you knew you were going to die. But that didn’t make me feel like I had one foot in the grave. It actually put my mind at ease and reduced my anxiety about what my family’s future would look like if something happened to me. Which meant that when the engines lit up at launch, I was able to focus entirely on the task at hand: arriving alive.

His snickarbod (Swedish for "toolshed") gradually became what I believe today is called a "man cave." In Swedish we also now sometimes call it mansdagis-- a male kindergarten, which makes me smile and which feels like an entirely appropriate word.

At some time all cities have this feel: in London it's at five or six on a winer evening. Paris has it too, late, when the cafes are closing up. In New York it can happen anytime: early in the morning as the light climbs over the canyon streets and the avenues stretch so far into the distance that it seems the whole world is city; or now, as the chimes of midnight hang in the rain and all the city's longings acquire the clarity and certainty of sudden understanding. The day coming to an end and people unable to evade any longer the nagging sense of futility that has been growing stronger through the day, knowing that they will feel better when they wake up and it is daylight again but knowing also that each day leads to this sense of quiet isolation. Whether the plates have been stacked neatly away or the sink is cluttered with unwashed dishes makes no difference because all these details--the clothes hanging in the closet, the sheets on the bed--tell the same story--a story in which they walk to the window and look out at the rain-lit streets, wondering how many other people are looking out like this, people who look forward to Monday because the weekdays have a purpose which vanishes at the weekend when there is only the laundry and the papers. And knowing also that these thoughts do not represent any kind of revelation because by now they have themselves become part of the same routine of bearable despair, a summing up that is all the time dissolving into everyday. A time in the day when it is possible to regret everything and nothing in the same breath, when the only wish of all bachelors is that there was someone who loved them, who was thinking of them even if she was on the other side of the world. When a woman, feeling the city falling damp around her, hearing music from a radio somewhere, looks up and imagines the lives being led behind the yellow-lighted windows: a man at his sink, a family crowded together around a television, lovers drawing curtains, someone at his desk, hearing the same tune on the radio, writing these words.

High rents had priced out the very service sector whose presence at ready hand once helped to justify urban living. For all practical purposes, affluent New Yorkers resided in a crowded, cluttered version of the countryside, where you had to drive five miles for a quart of milk. Florence

Passing through the orchard, Mr. Clutter proceeded along beside the river, which was shallow here and strewn with islands—midstream beaches of soft sand, to which, on Sundays gone by, hot-weather Sabbaths when Bonnie had still “felt up to things,” picnic baskets had been carted, family afternoons whiled away waiting for a twitch at the end of a fishline.

The Rupp family were Roman Catholics, the Clutters, Methodist—a fact that should in itself be sufficient to terminate whatever fancies she and this boy might have of some day marrying.

The Garden City Telegram, on the eve of the trial's start, printed the following editorial: "Some may think the eyes of the entire nation are on Garden City during this sensational murder trial. But they are not. Even a hundred miles west of here in Colorado few persons are even acquainted with the case - other than just remembering some members of a prominent family were slain. This is a sad commentary on the state of crime in our nation. Since the four members of the Clutter family were killed last fall, several other such multiple murders have occurred in various parts of the country. Just during the few days leading up to this trial at least three mass murder cases broke into the headlines. As a result, this crime and trial are just one of many such cases people have read about and forgotten....

We were the church. As the New Testament instructed. When it was time for Sunday morning meeting, we convened in private homes. To raise a structure and call it a church was the worldly way. A church made of hands was soon cluttered with altars and crucifixes, and was thereupon idolatrous. These false churches, they were not walking in Truth. They were whistling off to Hades. This was a shame, because I knew some real nice Lutherans.

Maligant items don't have to be reminders of bad times, like a breakup or a health crisis. They can bring back memories of loved ones or high points in your life. But if these memories leave you feeling sad or feeling that your life isn't as good now, then the objects are causing you mental and emotional harm and have no place in your home. ...The key to enjoying happiness and good health in a warm, welcoming home is to live IN THE PRESENT MOMENT surrounded by items that you cherish and that have meaning for you and your family. If too much of your time is spent replaying your greatest hits or struggling with old pain, you're not making new memories of your present life.

As I thin out my things and discuss what to do with what is left, I release the expectation that they must be passed down within my family. This openness and acceptance may potentially pave the way for less disputes and resentments in the future.

Daily I witness my spiritual betters in my own children. When the snows come, I see ice crystals falling, slick roads, and rising heat bills. They sit at the window in awe of God's creativity. When nighttime falls and the stars shine, I muse about burning balls of hydrogen. They join the dancing of the spheres in celebration of God who made them. When our family sits down to eat, I envision a cluttered kitchen and dishes needing to be washed. They see daily bread delivered by their faithful heavenly Father.

Many families amass more objects than their houses can hold. The result is garages given over to old furniture and unused sports equipment, home offices cluttered with boxes of stuff that haven’t yet been taken to the garage. Three out of four Americans report their garages are too full to put a car into them. Women’s cortisol levels (the stress hormone) spike when confronted with such clutter (men’s, not so much). Elevated cortisol levels can lead to chronic cognitive impairment, fatigue, and suppression of the body’s immune system.

It’s not about living in a sleek loft with three pieces of designer furniture. It’s not daring, nor dramatic, nor even all that difficult. What is minimalism then? It’s eliminating the excess. It’s asking “why” before you buy. It’s embracing the concept of enough. It’s living lightly and gracefully on the Earth. It’s uncovering who you are when all of the logos, brand names, and clutter are stripped away. It’s simple, it’s ordinary, and it’s accessible to everyone—from singles to families, teenagers to retirees. I’m reminded of the saying, “Zen is chopping wood and carrying water.” In other words, the world of enlightenment is none other than our everyday world.

her teacher had written, without wasting words, that she missed her. Ramona was going to give her book report any way she wanted. So there, Mrs. Whaley. Ramona went to her room and looked at her table, which the family called “Ramona’s studio,” because it was a clutter of crayons, different kinds of paper, Scotch tape, bits of yarn, and odds and ends that Ramona used for amusing herself. Then Ramona thought a moment, and suddenly, filled with inspiration, she went to work. She knew exactly what she wanted to do and set about doing it. She worked with paper, crayons, Scotch tape, and rubber bands. She worked so hard and with such pleasure that her cheeks grew pink. Nothing in the whole world felt as good as being

The accrued guilt and clutter of day-to-day existence—the lapses of conscience, the unpaid bills, the bungled opportunities, the dust under the couch, the festering familial sores, the inescapable prison of your genes—all of it is temporarily forgotten, crowded from your thoughts by an overpowering clarity of purpose, and by the seriousness of the task at hand.

Feeling wouldn’t run half so high if this had happened to anyone except the Clutters. Anyone less admired. Prosperous. Secure. But that family represented everything people hereabouts really value and respect, and that such a thing could happen to them—well, it’s like being told there is no God. It makes life seem pointless. I don’t think people are so much frightened as they are deeply depressed.

How much do I love our family? This much. When any kind of emergency strikes, good or bad, we snap together like parts in a machine, like a submarine crew at war in the tin-can clutter of our home, none of the usual debate, character assassination, woeful monologues, and turgid hand-wringing. I've learned to love crises for this reason, how they make us pull together and forget our separateness and sadness; this was the second great gift of the moonfish.

Of course, I should have known the kids would pop out in the atmosphere of Roberta's office. That's what they do when Alice is under stress. They see a gap in the space-time continuum and slip through like beams of light through a prism changing form and direction. We had got into the habit in recent weeks of starting our sessions with that marble and stick game called Ker-Plunk, which Billy liked. There were times when I caught myself entering the office with a teddy that Samuel had taken from the toy cupboard outside. Roberta told me that on a couple of occasions I had shot her with the plastic gun and once, as Samuel, I had climbed down from the high-tech chairs, rolled into a ball in the corner and just cried. 'This is embarrassing,' I admitted. 'It doesn't have to be.' 'It doesn't have to be, but it is,' I said. The thing is. I never knew when the 'others' were going to come out. I only discovered that one had been out when I lost time or found myself in the midst of some wacky occupation — finger-painting like a five-year-old, cutting my arms, wandering from shops with unwanted, unpaid-for clutter. In her reserved way, Roberta described the kids as an elaborate defence mechanism. As a child, I had blocked out my memories in order not to dwell on anything painful or uncertain. Even as a teenager, I had allowed the bizarre and terrifying to seem normal because the alternative would have upset the fiction of my loving little nuclear family. I made a mental note to look up defence mechanisms, something we had touched on in psychology.

If your parents are getting old and you don't know how to bring up the topic of what to do with all the stuff, I would suggest you pay them a visit, sit down, and ask some of the following questions in a gentle way: "You have many nice things, have you thought about what you want to do with it all later on?" "Do you enjoy having all this stuff?" "Could life be easier and less tiring if we got rid of some of this stuff that you have collected over the years?" "Is there anything we can do together in a slow way so that there won't be too many things to handle later?

HEALTHY BOUNDARIES Minimalism helps you set healthy boundaries by giving you the clarity to see all the things you’re spinning your wheels on. Resetting boundaries to align with priorities is an ongoing process in a minimalist lifestyle, but it’s not an unwelcome chore. The rewards of more being and less striving encourage me to keep going on this journey. If I don’t prioritize my life, someone or something else will. MORE TIME Keeping more than we need, whether it’s possessions or activities, brings a fog into our daily lives that makes it harder to think clearly. Under the influence of clutter, we may underestimate how much time we’re giving to the less important stuff. When we say, “If I could find the time . . .” we’re really talking about how we choose to use our time. Minimalism helps you see how you’re spending your time and to think more clearly about how you would really like to spend it.

At a time when moguls vied to impress people with their possessions, Rockefeller preferred comfort to refinement. His house was bare of hunting trophies, shelves of richly bound but unread books, or other signs of conspicuous consumption. Rockefeller molded his house for his own use, not to awe strangers. As he wrote of the Forest Hill fireplaces in 1877: “I have seen a good many fireplaces here [and] don’t think the character of our rooms will warrant going into the expenditures for fancy tiling and all that sort of thing that we find in some of the extravagant houses here. What we want is a sensible, plain arrangement in keeping with our rooms.”3 It took time for the family to adjust to Forest Hill. The house had been built as a hotel, and it showed: It had an office to the left of the front door, a dining room with small tables straight ahead, upstairs corridors lined with cubicle-sized rooms, and porches wrapped around each floor. The verandas, also decorated in resort style, were cluttered with bamboo furniture. It was perhaps this arrangement that tempted John and Cettie to run Forest Hill as a paying club for friends, and they got a dozen to come and stay during the summer of 1877. This venture proved no less of a debacle than the proposed sanatorium. As “club guests,” many visitors expected Cettie to function as their unlikely hostess. Some didn’t know they were in a commercial establishment and were shocked upon returning home to receive bills for their stay.

In the cities of the Jewish diaspora (especially Alexandria, Antioch, Tarsus, Ephesus, and Rome), Jews were widely admired by their gentile neighbors. For one thing, they had a real religion, not a clutter of gods and goddesses and pro forma rituals that almost nobody took seriously anymore. They actually believed in their one God; and, imagine, they even set aside one day a week to pray to him and reflect on their lives. They possessed a dignified library of sacred books that they studied reverently as part of this weekly reflection and which, if more than a little odd in their Greek translation, seemed to point toward a consistent worldview. Besides their religious seriousness, Jews were unusual in a number of ways that caught the attention of gentiles. They were faithful spouses—no, really—who maintained strong families in which even grown children remained affectively attached and respectful to their parents. Despite Caesar Nero’s shining example, matricide was virtually unknown among them. Despite their growing economic success, they tended to be more scrupulous in business than non-Jews. And they were downright finicky when it came to taking human life, seeming to value even a slave’s or a plebeian’s life as much as anyone else’s. Perhaps in nothing did the gentiles find the Jews so admirable as in their acts of charity. Communities of urban Jews, in addition to opening synagogues, built welfare centers for aiding the poor, the miserable, the sick, the homebound, the imprisoned, and those, such as widows and orphans, who had no family to care for them. For all these reasons, the diaspora cities of the first century saw a marked increase in gentile initiates to Judaism. Many of these were wellborn women who presided over substantial households and who had likely tried out some of the Eastern mystery cults before settling on Judaism. (Nero’s wife Poppea was almost certainly one of these, and probably the person responsible for instructing Nero in the subtle difference between Christians and more traditional Jews, which he would otherwise scarcely have been aware of.) These gentiles did not, generally speaking, go all the way. Because they tended to draw the line at circumcision, they were not considered complete Jews. They were, rather, noachides, or God-fearers, gentiles who remained gentiles while keeping the Sabbath and many of the Jewish dietary restrictions and coming to put their trust in the one God of the Jews. Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, however, could turn out to be a difficult test of the commitment of the noachides. For here in the heart of the Jewish world, they encountered Judaism enragé, a provincial religion concerned only with itself, and ages apart from the rational, tolerant Judaism of the diaspora. In the words of Paul Johnson:

Do your kids see your kindness or are you always telling them. "NO?

Unit’s seventh floor offices revealed little trace of his personality--unless that in itself offered the faintest glimpse. While most of his fellow detectives had family photos, personal announcements, or their children’s artwork posted around their work areas, David’s cubicle revealed only a single photo of Michelle. In it, she smiled broadly in front of a sign for the Olympic National Park’s Hurricane Ridge. He wasn’t a bit superstitious, but he was reluctant to bring even a picture of his family into the office. He also abhorred clutter, which made the papers and file folders strewn around his desk all the more unusual.

id you know that having everything tidy doesn't always mean you're organized? You can be a neat "clutterer." Instead of asking, "Now, where do I put this?" ask, "Where will I find it?" There's a big difference in approach. When your office (or your life for that matter!) is too messy, you can't utilize your time wisely. You spend more time trying to find things than working on the project at hand. What's the clutter costing you? Most likely time, money, and, if you're operating a business, customers. And what message are you passing along to your family? Remember, being organized is not a personality trait. It's a skill you can learn. 'Me secret is to get organized and then maintain it over the long haul. Once you've accomplished that, you can meet the challenges of each new day with energy and enthusiasm.

Okay, listen up! Clear your desk...NOW! Despite what some people believe, a cluttered desk does not indicate genius. Au contraire! It signals confusion and creates stress. Even mini-clutter will grow and eventually fill every inch. Keep your desk clear of everything except your project du jour and your family picture.   22

Family and friends, in fact anyone on the "team” that has a continuing relationship with a hoarder, needs to understand that, like a recovering addict, a hoarder is going to struggle for the rest of his or her life.

After Jim passed away, his sons and daughters went through a mourning period. Because they couldn’t handle the emotions of the cleanup on top of the loss in their family, they closed up the house and let it sit for about a year. Had they jumped into cleaning right away, it would have been tempting to keep a lot of Jim’s things, especially because so many of them were actually valuable historical items. This is one way I see hoarding passed from generation to generation.

existence like every middle-school student who’d ever been forced to come out of their bedroom.

Carol I must not be confused with his nephew’s son, Carol II. Whereas the latter was undisciplined and sensual, the former was an anal-retentive Prussian of the family of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, who, in the course of a forty-eight-year rule (1866–1914), essentially built modern Romania, complete with nascent institutions, from an assemblage of regions and two weak principalities. Following 1989, he had become the default symbol of legitimacy for the Romanian state. Whereas Carol I signified realism and stability, the liberal National Peasant Party leader Iuliu Maniu, a Greek Catholic by upbringing, stood for universal values. As a mid-twentieth-century local politician in extraordinarily horrifying circumstances, Maniu had agitated against the assault on the Jews and in favor of getting Antonescu to switch sides against the Nazis; soon after, during the earliest days of the Cold War, he agitated against the Soviets and their local puppets. Nazi foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop once demanded Maniu’s execution. As it turned out, the Communist Gheorghiu-Dej regime later convicted Maniu in a show trial in 1947. Defying his accusers, he spoke up in court for free elections, political liberties, and fundamental human rights.16 He died in prison in 1953 and his body was dumped in a common grave. Maniu’s emaciated treelike statue with quotations from the Psalms is, by itself, supremely moving. But there is a complete lack of harmony between it and the massive, adjacent spear pointing to the sky, honoring the victims of the 1989 revolution. The memorial slabs beside the spear are already chipped and cracked. Piaţa Revoluţiei in 1981 was dark, empty, and fear-inducing. Now it was cluttered with memorials, oppressed by traffic, and in general looked like an amateurish work in progress. But though it lacked any

Paradoxically, shared silence also creates harmonies. Silences in our culture and families are often a bad sign, that we’re not speaking to each other, and silences can be hollow, as in childhood when we were sent to our rooms, or as in adulthood, with words that cannot be spoken. The hard silence between frustrated people always feels cluttered. But holy silence is spacious and inviting. You can drink it down. We offer it to ourselves when we work, rest, meditate, bike, read. When we hike by ourselves, we hear a silence still pristine with crunching leaves and birdsong. Silence can be a system of peace, which is mercy, easily offered to a friend needing quiet, harder when the person is one’s own annoying self.

After changing into a yellow day dress with airy pagoda sleeves that ended at the elbow, she went to the family's private upstairs parlor. The family dogs, a pair of small black spaniels named Napoleon and Josephine, saw her in the hallway and trotted after her. The parlor was comfortably cluttered with heaps of colorful cushions on the furniture, a battered piano in the corner, and piles of books everywhere. She sat cross-legged on the carpet with the dogs, smiling as they bounded in and out of her lap excitedly. "We don't need Prince Charming, do we?" she asked them aloud. "No, we do not. There's a patch of sun on the carpet and books nearby- that's all we need to be happy." The spaniels stretched out in a bright yellow rectangle, wriggling and sighing in contentment. After petting and scratching the dogs for a while, Cassandra reached out to a stack of books on a low table, and sorted through them idly. Double Wedding... The Secret Duke... My Dashing Suitor, and other romantic novels she had read and reread. Much lower in the pile, there were books such as History of the Thirty Years' Peace and Life of Nelson, the kind one read in case one was called upon to make insightful comments at dinner.

Be sure to take time out of your day for family and friends. There is more to life than a clean and organized home…wait, did I just say that?

Clutter can have a very negative impact on children and relationships, and just by getting rid of the things you do not use or love, you can drastically improve the quality of life for your entire family.

The other thing she needs is to feel heard—hence the persistent squawking. This part is key. If ever she feels dismissed or ignored, chaos ensues. This chaos can take many shapes—more clutter, a nasty head cold that knocks you down for a week, a distracted mind, aches and pains, a family member or friend telling you not to get rid of this or that, or a sexy invitation for the exact time you had scheduled your clutter clearing—anything that will stop you in your tracks and throw a wrench in your clutter-clearing plans

From an early age I helped my mother clean them. We used a special cloth provided by the government, which could not be used for cleaning anything else. Even as a toddler I knew that the portraits were not like other household items. Once, when I pointed a finger at them, my mother scolded me loudly. ‘Never do that.’ Pointing, I learned, was extremely rude. If we needed to gesture towards them, we did so with the palm of the hand facing upward, with respect. ‘Like this,’ she said, showing me. They had to be the highest objects in the room and perfectly aligned. No other pictures or clutter were permitted on the same wall. Public buildings, and the homes of high-ranking cadres of the Party, were obliged to display a third portrait – of Kim Jong-suk, a heroine of the anti-Japanese resistance who died young. She was the first wife of Kim Il-sung and the sainted mother of Kim Jong-il. I thought she was very beautiful. This holy trinity we called the Three Generals of Mount Paektu. About once a month officials wearing white gloves entered every house in the block to inspect the portraits. If they reported a household for failing to clean them – we once saw them shine a flashlight at an angle to see if they could discern a single mote of dust on the glass – the family would be punished.

Here is the problem I have with professional organizers: they organize the “stuff” in a home instead of organizing the family.

I cannot tell you how many stories I’ve heard of families paying good money for professional organizing services, just to have them all fail a week later. If you (or the professional organizer) doesn’t understand what systems will and will not work for you and your family’s style, it can only end in failure.

When I finally stopped looking at housework as something I did for my family or even because of them, I stopped being resentful. In truth, I clean and tidy for myself. I do it because it makes me happy to have a tidy home.

Take a look at your “piles” around your home. Odds are, they are piled where they are because you or your family members are “waiting” to put the things away until “later.” If you have to wait until later to put those things away, that usually means that the home for those things is not as convenient as it could be.

Letting go can be a tough process, but I can promise you, it does get easier. The more you purge, the less fear you will have and the easier it will become. Start small and enlist the help of a friend or family member you trust if you have to. Keep reminding yourself your unused items are taking from you, not giving. Let go of the clutter that makes you feel guilt, shame, and sadness today.

She stepped back into the house. “I want to show you something.” Trying to get his legs back, his head wobbly, and his internal referee still giving him the eight count, Myron followed her silently up the stairway. She led him down a darkened corridor lined with modern lithographs. She stopped, opened a door, and flipped on the lights. The room was teenage-cluttered, as if someone had put all the belongings in the center of the room and dropped a hand grenade on them. The posters on the walls—Michael Jordan, Keith Van Horn, Greg Downing, Austin Powers, the words YEAH, BABY! across his middle in pink tie-dye lettering—had been hung askew, all tattered corners and missing pushpins. There was a Nerf basketball hoop on the closet door. There was a computer on the desk and a baseball cap dangling from a desk lamp. The corkboard had a mix of family snapshots and construction-paper crayons signed by Jeremy’s sister, all held up by oversized pushpins. There were footballs and autographed baseballs and cheap trophies and a couple of blue ribbons and three basketballs, one with no air in it. There were stacks of computer-game CD-ROMs and a Game Boy on the unmade bed and a surprising amount of books, several opened and facedown. Clothes littered the floor like war wounded; the drawers were half open, shirts and underwear hanging out like they’d been shot mid-escape. The room had the slight, oddly comforting smell of kids’ socks.

Extroverts typically . . . • Process information externally by verbalizing, collaborating, brainstorming, discussing, sharing their ideas, and communicating until they achieve desired results. • Are rejuvenated and re-charged by being around people, interacting with friends and family, and having dynamic conversations. • Enjoy the excitement and adventure of a new situation or setting. • Tend to be more colorful, unpredictable, daring, stylish, and cluttered in their clothing, home furnishings, offices, and surroundings. • Love meeting new people and making new friends. They enjoy variety and engaging on all levels. • Are very spontaneous, resilient, and adapt well to change.

Biran closed his eyes to shut out the clutter of visual input and thought of family. Not his family—that was too specific an idea, too changeable—but it included his family. It wasn’t the units of the family that mattered—not the role of a parent or child or sibling—but slotting into a close-knit community in which you truly belonged. Biran’s idea of family was not born of blood and generational ties, it was nebulous. Friends counted. Anyone could be a family, if they loved hard enough.

And we're cheerful, too. You can count on that.' Obligingly she smiled in a neighbourly way at him. 'It will be a relief to leave Earth with its repressive legislation. We were listening OH the FM to the news about the McPhearson Act.' 'We consider it dreadful,' the adult male said. 'I have to agree with you,' Chic said. 'But what can one do?' He looked around for the mail; as always it was lost somewhere in the mass of clutter. 'One can emigrate,' the adult male simulacrum pointed out. 'Um,' Chic said absently. He had found an unexpected heap of recent-looking bills from parts suppliers; with a feeling of gloom and even terror he began to bills from parts suppliers; with a feeling of gloom and even terror he began to sort through them. Had Maury seen these? Probably. Seen them and then pushed them away immediately, out of sight. Frauenzimmer Associates functioned better if it was not reminded of such facts of life. Like a regressed neurotic, it had to hide several aspects of reality from its percept system in order to function at all. This was hardly ideal, but what really was the alternative? To be realistic would be to give up, to die. Illusion, of an infantile nature was essential for the tiny firm's survival, or at least so it seemed to him and Maury. In any case both of them had adopted this attitude. Their simulacra -- the adult ones -- disapproved of this; their cold, logical appraisal of reality stood in sharp contrast, and Chic always felt a little naked, a little embarrassed, before the simulacra; he knew he should set a better example for them. 'If you bought a jalopy and emigrated to Mars,' the adult male said, 'We could be the famnexdo for you.' 'I wouldn't need any family next-door,' Chic said, 'if I emigrated to Mars. I'd go to get away from people. 'We'd make a very good family next-door to you,' the female said. 'Look,' Chic said, 'you don't have to lecture me about your virtues. I know more than you do yourselves.' And for good reason. Their presumption, their earnest sincerity, amused but also irked him. As next-door neighbours this group of sims would be something of a nuisance, he reflected. Still, that was what emigrants wanted, in fact needed, out in the sparsely-populated colonial regions. He could appreciate that; after all, it was Frauenzimmer Associates' business to understand. A man, when he emigrated, could buy neighbours, buy the simulated presence of life, the sound and motion of human activity -- or at least its ​mechanical nearsubstitute to bolster his morale in the new environment of unfamiliar stimuli and perhaps, god forbid, no stimuli at all. And in addition to this primary psychological gain there was a practical secondary advantage as well. The famnexdo group of simulacra developed the parcel of land, tilled it and planted it, irrigated it, made it fertile, highly productive. And the yield went to the it, irrigated it, made it fertile, highly productive. And the yield went to the human settler because the famnexdo group, legally speaking, occupied the peripheral portions of his land. The famnexdo were actually not next-door at all; they were part of their owner's entourage. Communication with them was in essence a circular dialogue with oneself; the famnexdo, it they were functioning properly, picked up the covert hopes and dreams of the settler and detailed them back in an articulated fashion. Therapeutically, this was helpful, although from a cultural standpoint it was a trifle sterile.

Kim Il-sung also wanted love. Murals in vivid poster colors showed him surrounded by pink-cheeked children looking on with adoration as he bestowed on them a pearly-toothed, ear-to-ear grin. Toys and bicycles clutter the background of these images—Kim Il-sung didn’t want to be Joseph Stalin; he wanted to be Santa Claus. His dimpled cheeks made him appear more cuddly than other dictators. He was to be regarded as a father, in the Confucian sense of commanding respect and love. He wanted to ingratiate himself into North Korean families as their own flesh and blood. This kind of Confucian communism bore greater resemblance to the culture of imperial Japan, where the emperor was the sun to which all subjects bowed, than to anything envisioned by Karl Marx.

My daughter sometimes says that I am so worried about being a nuisance that my worry itself becomes troublesome.

His

The boat was a type called an Optimist dinghy. It is a beginner's boat. If that little boat had been able to speak, no one would have believed all the stories it could have told: tales of victory and defeat, tales of oceans and islands and fjords it had brought its occupants to.

Ming searches through the family kitchen for supplies. Winnie left them overstocked with canned and dried goods, but the Chao men don't buy groceries. The fridge is stuffed with take-out containers. While Katherine pretends to catch up on emails from work, Ming digs out from the piled-up counter a sprouting yellow onion and some aged potatoes. He dices the onion, and, after digging the eyes out of the potatoes, he cubes them. He watches Katherine's reflection in the picture window. She studies his wiry hands moving with confidence from knife to bowl to pan handle. (At home, he won't use the wok.) He cracks some eggs deftly, showing off his dexterousness perhaps, and makes a savory Spanish omelet. Dagou isn't the only talented cook among the Chao brothers. The aging cabbage and the carrots from the fridge become, with a few flicks of magic, a salad, dressed with sesame oil and sweetened rice vinegar, sprinkled with sesame seeds. Ming and Katherine sit down at the cluttered kitchen table and eat together, not talking. Although doubtless Katherine would've preferred something "more authentic"----fried rice with eggs, green onions instead of yellow, and stir-fried cabbage instead of salad---the dinner leaves her curiously softened.

The things you own should help you create the home and the life you want. The key to enjoying happiness and good health in a warm, welcoming home is to live in the present moment surrounded by items that you cherish and that have meaning for you and your family

But every stage in a family’s evolution can benefit from a little more space and grace, a little less speed and clutter.

Another doctor suggested a new anti-anxiety medication, which I duly added to the clutter of bottles by my bedside. And then, after a series of family consultations, a New York psychologist named Keith Westerfield surprised me first with a thoughtful explanation and then with a formal diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome. I bought a book of essays on the condition, edited by Ami Klin, Fred R. Volkmar, and Sara S. Sparrow, and devoured it with stunned fascination. Despite the daunting medical language of some of the chapters, I felt as though I had stumbled upon my secret biography. Here it all was—the computer-like retention, the physical awkwardness, the difficulties with peers and lovers, the need for routine and repetition, the narrow, specialized interests (one article even mentioned silent film, old recordings, and true crime—had they created a developmental disorder just for me?). I was forty-five years old when I learned that I wasn’t alone.

Marcel had heard people describe empty galleries as being eerie, spooky, somehow lesser for the absence of people. Personally, he found that to be utter drivel. While he knew better than to say it out loud, galleries looked so much better to him without people wandering around, cluttering up the place, gawping at things. He knew the official message was that art must be brought to the public and the public must learn to appreciate art, et cetera, et cetera. He toed the party line but, deep down, all that was nonsense to him. Art existed because he saw it and it was good because he said it was. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, of course, but why must we pretend all opinions are equal? He had worked so very hard, fought tooth and nail, to get where he was today – a curator at the Louvre. That meant he knew better. Knowing better was almost in his job title.

This cycle of consumption we are all part of will eventually destroy our planet—but it doesn’t have to destroy the relationship you have with whomever you leave behind.

G. Bengtsson, a Swedish author and poet whom my husband liked very much. The poem, “A Gazelle,” ends in the following way: The seagull knows a way to rest. The human heart, on earth, does not know yet.

What enraged me about my mother's illness was not precisely the issue of money; it was the fact that she transformed from parent to stranger. The manic episodes would erupt and turn her into a tornado of destruction. Any money she had disappeared. She was fired from jobs, discrimination laws be damned. She struck up friendships with customers at random places. Piles of clutter became mountains in her home; we had to literally clean up the mess. Worst of all, she became impossible to talk to. Her eyes darted around the room and as the speed of her speech increased, what she said made no sense. She could be mean, her language suddenly laden with swears. No one could slow her down or connect with her and she felt gone from me. The person I knew was not there anymore. When that person is your mother, the world becomes a frighteningly uncertain place where anything is possible, as if all the trees and all the world sprouted knives for branches. In the hospital I couldn't say any of this; money was just an easy thing I could point to, a worthless rebuttal to the fact of her bipolar disorder.

Old people seem to think time goes so quickly, but in fact it is we who have become slower.

A loved one wishes to inherit nice things from you. Not all things from you.

Being hospitable to our family does not just entail dinner time manners. We are called to be busy at home- preparing a space free of clutter, dirt, and mental distraction.

Designate clutter-free zones. Declare that all public and family spaces (like the living room, dining room, and kitchen) will henceforth be clutter-free areas; it’s a great way to confine clutter to its owner’s personal space. If any wayward items land in these zones, return them immediately to their owner. Better yet, let your family know that anything left behind will be considered a voluntary “donation” to charity.

Minimizing Checklist How will you know when you’ve cleared out enough clutter and excess from your living room and family room or great room? Ask yourself these questions: ☐ Is this space calming? Does it reduce stress? ☐ Does this space encourage conversation? ☐ Is this space inviting to my family? To my friends? ☐ Is this space easy to maintain? ☐ Does this space highlight what is important to our family? ☐ Does this space encourage my family to live life to the fullest? ☐ Does this space promote our family’s values?

Death cleaning is not about dusting or mopping up; it is about a permanent form of organization that makes your everyday life run more smoothly.

We would like to dedicate this book to those struggling with hoarding disorder and those who care about them. Many people must deal with life circumstances that make progress an uphill struggle. The courage of those who hoard and that of their families demonstrates that being willing to open old wounds, challenge limiting beliefs, and step forward into unfamiliar and unknown territory mentally, physically, and spiritually is genuinely humbling and inspiring to peers and professionals alike. To face one’s fear of judgment and continue to work toward success takes courage and fortitude, especially

What do you want to be known for? What do you want your loved ones to recognize about you? Your kindness? Your sense of humor? Your professional success? Your values? Your family?

I should factionalized is more, I should conceal myself. I should consider the responsibilities of characterization, I should conflate her two children into one, or reverse their genders, or otherwise alter them, I should make her boyfriend a husband, I should explicate all the tributaries of my extended family (its remarriages, its internecine politics), I should novelized the whole thing, I should make it multi-generational, I should work in my forefathers (stonemasons and newspapermen), I should let artifice create an elegant surface, I should make the events orderly, I should wait and write about it later, I should wait until I’m not angry, I shouldn’t clutter a narrative with fragments, with mere recollections of good times, or with regrets, I should make Meredith’s death shapely and persuasive, not blunt and disjunctive, I shouldn’t have to think the unthinkable, I shouldn’t have to suffer, I should address her here directly (these are the ways I miss you), I should write only of affection, I should make our travels in this earthly landscape safe and secure, I should have a better ending, I shouldn’t say her life was short and often sad, I shouldn’t say she had her demons, as I do too.

I should fictionalize it more, I should conceal myself. I should consider the responsibilities of characterization, I should conflate her two children into one, or reverse their genders, or otherwise alter them, I should make her boyfriend a husband, I should explicate all the tributaries of my extended family (its remarriages, its internecine politics), I should novelized the whole thing, I should make it multi-generational, I should work in my forefathers (stonemasons and newspapermen), I should let artifice create an elegant surface, I should make the events orderly, I should wait and write about it later, I should wait until I’m not angry, I shouldn’t clutter a narrative with fragments, with mere recollections of good times, or with regrets, I should make Meredith’s death shapely and persuasive, not blunt and disjunctive, I shouldn’t have to think the unthinkable, I shouldn’t have to suffer, I should address her here directly (these are the ways I miss you), I should write only of affection, I should make our travels in this earthly landscape safe and secure, I should have a better ending, I shouldn’t say her life was short and often sad, I shouldn’t say she had her demons, as I do too.

When an object is put aside, not to be returned to for a while, it will lie fully ignored until used again. Objects which lie unmoved for more than about 48 hours usually become invisible to the INTP, until such time as he has a use for them again… Indeed, less mature INTPs have a reluctance to move objects at all, for the desire to remain detached and not physically interact with the world can be strong. The one thing that will force an INTP to tidy his home radically, even when alone, is when the clutter eventually gets in his way and hinders some activity. Often, however, the offending objects will merely be moved into another corner where they can spend some more weeks being invisible. When an INTP lives with a partner and perhaps has a family, he learns the necessity of focussing on the details of tidiness.

God is more concerned with our knowing Him than He is in our half-hearted pleasures of comfort, ambition, and success. So much so that He often allows pain and suffering into our lives to clear the clutter of mute, deaf, and unworthy idols that can never deliver on their promises, even when they’re ostensibly good things like health, family, career, success, and status.

When children have too many playthings to choose from, they typically choose nothing. When there is too much furniture, children cannot engage in active play or exploration because they are overwhelmed or it’s simply too crowded to move. Items hanging from the ceiling become “clutter flutter,” and too many wall displays take on the look of highly patterned wallpaper. Instead of supporting children’s experiences, cluttered environments prevent learning from happening.

Sort pills. Write note to family. Fold blanket. I am alone. Alone in a dark, unfamiliar room filled with piles and piles of stuff, reminiscent of a neglected storage locker. I know researchers are observing me from behind one-way glass—that this is an experiment in empathy, that we are, in fact, on the sprawling campus of a pharmaceutical company in New Jersey, that I can rip off the headphones at any moment and return to my present life, my real life—but this offers me no comfort. I can barely see through the goggles. My feet hurt. Every step is agony, the sharp plastic spikes digging into my soles. Sort pills. Write note to family. Fold blanket. I try to make out the shapes around me. I see an ironing board, a stack of sweaters. A ball of twine. My determination to cross items off any to-do list—always a strong suit of mine—feels slippery. Suddenly, I am a child playing hide-and-seek in the dark. Counting. Eyes squeezed shut. Terrified. Wondering if anyone will ever find me. Blanket. Pills. Note. I keep repeating the words like a prayer so I can remember them through the terrible din. The inside of my head is a needle against a scratched record, skipping, skipping. I feel my way around a cluttered table. A pill case! I try to pick it up. I barely feel it in the palm of my hand. After several tries, I get it open. Then I begin to sort the pills as best I can. Most of them spill to the floor, and I am suddenly, irrationally furious. I move around the table, supporting myself on my hands to take the pressure off my feet. I push an iron out of the way, a magazine, a wooden hanger. The notebook. I find the notebook. My gloved fingers won’t close around a pencil, so I hold it the way a child would, in my fist. By now it all feels nearly futile. I’m on the verge of tears. What is the last task? Through the static, I remember: the blanket. I have to fold it. By now I’m dizzy, depleted. What difference can it possibly make? Who cares? I do a shitty job of folding the blanket and then—then I just sit down in a chair and wait for M. to rescue me. —

The most famous room in the palace—for a time the most famous room in Russia—was the Empress’s mauve boudoir. Everything in it was mauve: curtains, carpet, pillows; even the furniture was mauve-and-white Hepplewhite. Masses of fresh white and purple lilacs, vases of roses and orchids and bowls of violets perfumed the air. Tables and shelves were cluttered with books, papers and porcelain and enamel knicknacks. In this room, Alexandra surrounded herself with mementoes of her family and her religion. The walls were covered with icons. Over her chaise-longue hung a picture of the Virgin Mary. A portrait of her mother, Princess Alice, looked down from another wall. On a table in a place of honor stood a large photograph of Queen Victoria. The only portrait in the room other than religious and family pictures was a portrait of Marie Antoinette.

What is minimalism then? It’s eliminating the excess. It’s asking “why” before you buy. It’s embracing the concept of enough. It’s living lightly and gracefully on the Earth. It’s uncovering who you are when all of the logos, brand names, and clutter are stripped away. It’s simple, it’s ordinary, and it’s accessible to everyone—from singles to families, teenagers to retirees.

Kate McDermott taught pie making around the world; I had taken her class several years before. It hadn't made me a baker, but it had given me some perspective on the art of pies. Mostly I had been taken by her attitude. "I make ugly pies," she told me. "They don't have to look perfect." That day Kate had ably patched ripped piecrust, shoring up weak spots where the dough had been rolled too thin. She didn't think it needed to be perfect. "Just fix any mistakes you make," she said without concern. "It doesn't matter." Kate's approach was breezy and relaxed. She barely followed a recipe. "See how it feels," she told me. "Trust yourself." As I ran my hands through the butter cut into flour, I felt emboldened. Things didn't have to be perfect. Kate seemed at peace with imperfections, her pies beautiful in their rustic uniqueness, no two ever the same. Perhaps the secret was finding comfort in the way things were: a process of accepting rather than hiding. The irony was that I liked it when other people let me see them as they truly were: less-than-perfect houses, disordered garages, overdue library books. The imperfections in my friends' lives didn't make me like them any less—they made me like them more. I felt more comfortable with the flaws in my own life, more intimately connected to them; it made me feel like family. I knew this intellectually, but it was harder to apply. I might be able to appreciate rustic charm in a pie, to enjoy the comfortable clutter of a friend's house, but I held myself to a higher standard—one I never managed to achieve. I just couldn't give myself that same compassion. But rolling out and patching the rips in my pie dough that afternoon, as Kate had shown me, I began to wonder if there might not be another way. And when I pulled the pie out of the oven, bumpy, irregular, burnished and glossy and smelling like raspberry heaven, for a moment I thought it was beautiful. My beautifully imperfect pie.

Most discussions about memory in older people concern deterioration and loss, but such discussions miss an important phenomenon. Our minds become less cluttered and more concerned with essentials. We develop deeper and more integrated memories. Where we put our cell phone or sunglasses is background. Foreground is a mix of memories about family, friends, history, turning points, and crucible moments.

Back then, our house felt full. Bursting, even. But never crowded, cluttered, claustrophobic. Because Love doesn't take up too much room.

ADHD is often disregarded by our friends and family and not seen as a legitimate mentally impairing illness. In turn, we may find ourselves unfairly labeled as lazy or even stupid.