Let’s Arrange Our Cupboards

“I want your cupboard arranged by Sunday morning. Do you understand?” said my dorm in-charge.

“Yes, sir,” replied the 11-year-old me hanging his head low.

My cupboard had its own little Himalayan range which I was happy with, but my teachers were not.

Sunday morning…

I scanned the corridor, checking if it was safe to leave without settling my cupboard. With a football in my hand, I slowly moved towards the door praying no one would notice me. But contrary to the popular belief God does not answer every prayer of a child. I got caught.

“Is your cupboard arranged Samarth?” called out my dorm in-charge behind me.

“I… I was just going to get to it,” I lied.

“I want it done in half-an-hour.”

Stuck, I resorted to the easiest solution. I stuffed my laundry bag with more than half of my clothes and folded the rest of them, it took close to five minutes. Job done!

Most of us have lives like my cupboard (yes, it’s still like that most of the time). Our problems seem endless like the number of clothes to fold, and work seems like the little mountains I had made. If we take out time to arrange our lives the way we do our cupboards, we will notice that our problems are just all over the place, leading us to think that they are more in number than they actually are. Arranging our lives can do wonders in improving the quality of our lives. The problem is that we never devote time to do it.

That said, we still need a trash can instead of the laundry bag. Prioritise and throw away what is not worth your time and attention. This can be tough because we are attached even to our problems. Be ruthless. Just like your favorite T-shirt cannot be used if it has a large hole in the middle, tasks which do not bring value or satisfaction to your or somebody else’s life, should go in the bin. Be sure to replace the laundry bag with the trash can. Remember, cleaner problems are still problems!

To arrange life and throw away what is not needed, you need to spend more time with our first mentor, your best-friend, You. We give hours to our loved ones, work and people we don’t like, but we barely have five minutes for ourselves. We try to bargain on time with ourselves, “My ‘me’ time is when I run” or “My me time is when I have my evening tea.” That is running and having tea not ‘me’ time.

‘Me’ time is sitting in a quiet place and having a conversation with yourself. The help we receive from ourselves changes our lives drastically. I prefer to call it the 15-minute wonder, because as little as 15 minutes in a day deliver mind-blowing benefits. Don’t worry the 20 minutes you ‘lose’ will make you gain at least a couple of hours in a day because you will arrange and prioritise, which prevents in the hour wasted looking for ‘the T-shirt.’ It is time to make an appointment 😂.