Organization is a great thing. It helps us be productive and to use our time wisely. Like a well organized kitchen allows us to have everything we need at our fingertips so that we can be inspired to create masterpieces rather than spend too much time and energy just trying to find things, organization can help us to be creative by saving us time and making the time we have focused on creation rather than preparing to create. Organization as a tool, as a means to an end, is fantastic. Organization as a type of life strangles creativity.
A place for everything and everything in its place is a wonderful motto for a work bench, a workshop, or a took kit. It’s not conducive to a human life. Forming ourselves into a craft box with allotted slots and keeping everything separated is anathema to the soul. We are not disparate parts, not cogs in a machine, not made of bits which can be separated, but whole beings with everything interconnected and integrated. Work life balance is healthy. Life regimentation is not. This is why sometimes it’s good to let go of the linear, the lists, the formula of this in means this much out. It’s good to be indirect.
This is why indulging one passion can fire us up about a project at work, delving into a book can inspire us to go take a hike and gather amazing photographs, spending a day binge watching Netflix can spur us to go out dancing with friends, and taking a walk can lead us to remember that one thing we overheard which makes everything we need to solve a problem fall into place. The long slow march of drudgery with our nose to the wheel and our ear to the ground (amazing visual isn’t it?) is not the only or even the best way to get things done let alone a way to live. Being direct can be a great way to solve problems but life isn’t a problem to be solved. So take the indirect path with yourself and see where it leads. You might find its the most amazingly elaborate and magical short cut to happiness you’ve found yet. 🙂
