Eliminating some of that clutter . . . spring cleaning for the soul!

Even though most of us realize that true happiness does not come from the things we accumulate, for some reason we still end up accumulating a lot of things. Sometimes our homes and closets and lives are filled with so much clutter, so much stuff, that we feel overwhelmed, even burdened by it all. There's so much to take care of, to worry about, to dust and clean, that the clutter seems to smother the joy out of life. Eliminating some of that clutter from our lives can be such a satisfying feeling. And it can serve as a good reminder that we treasure relationships and experiences more than things—that time together is more meaningful than stuff we buy that ends up in boxes and attics.

One recent best-selling author suggests an easy way to decide what to keep and what to discard: for each item, simply ask, "Does this spark joy?" Her advice is to "keep only the things that speak to your heart. Then take the plunge and discard all the rest. When you put your house in order, you put your affairs and your past in order, too. As a result, you can see quite clearly what you need in life and what you don't."

The fact is most of us would do well to unclutter more than just our closets. Letting go of material possessions can be a step toward tidying up the rest of our lives, helping us to clean out the debris in our soul and refocus our energies on people and things of greater worth. 

So perhaps it's time to determine whether there's clutter in our hearts that should be discarded—to throw out resentment and anger and replace them with affection and acceptance; throw out apathy and idleness and replace them with purposefulness and worthy activity; throw out envy and smallness and replace them with largeness of heart and generosity of spirit; throw out anything that constricts the soul and leave room only for those things that spark true joy.

Lloyd D. Newell