On Messiness
This is a sample of a running self-talk that paces through my brain recently: “A little bit of mess is okay. Some mess is okay. Mess is okay. Oh dear….hold on; maybe it’s time to clean.”
These phrases arise for instance, when I look at my table-top filled with loose papers, pens, LOTS of yellow sticky-notes, all of that splayed around a coffee mug that is constantly filled. It’s an inner dialogue about mess that comes out when I read over my to-do lists (and yes…there are several of them, some are hand-written, some exist on a Google, some on Notion), or when I know I have two pairs of inexpensive reading glasses somewhere in the house that I can never locate when I need to read something up close, like say…. my to-do lists. Each day this past month a voice in my brain comments on my messes, my clutter, the piles of confusion surrounding me and I know why: because I am navigating an over-full-to-the-brim period, a time that’s emotionally and physically maximized. Personal and professional commitments are many. Work, family and friends are intersecting in my life in broader ways. And the weather is in constant flux. All around me right now it feels as though the barometric pressures inherent in life’s activities deliver a sense of untidiness.
When I complained to a friend about the messes that seem less than an arms-length away from me, she said, “Make friends with the mess.” I rolled my eyes. Twirled a strand of my gray hair. Really? To me, making friends means to a relationship based on mutual affection, or one that aims to be based on mutual affection. The idea to establish an affection with mess was funny. I want to see myself as serious when it comes to getting things done, in control.
Making friends with mess is messy, too. While trying to understand my mess, and how to respond to mess in a friendly way I acknowledge that it is hard. It means changing how I think about myself as much as it means cleaning and organizing the stuff on my counter top and computer. Perhaps letting go of ‘serious’ and ‘control’ is the way to go.
Thanks to the encouragement of my friend, I’m reminded of the benefits to messiness.
All of us Little Big Believers know that leadership is messy; that being an entrepreneur, running a business or non-profit, wearing a multitude of relationship hats definitely means constant disarray; that making change for a better world little-step-by-little step includes feeling disheveled and blotchy, like stepping through puddles and pebbles and stumbling, getting up and starting again. So, in that shared spirit of jumble and tangle, I want to share a few benefits to mess I’m repeating to myself:
I am messy therefore I am unconventional
Sometimes being orderly is overrated
A messy desk (or day? week? life?) can be a sign of being spontaneous and flexible
What’s messy anyway? (this one is my favorite!)
Here’s a new running self-talk: Be messy, for as long as you want. Make a collage of the mess. Then step back and keep going.
