You Should Leave It Where It’s At, Even If It’s Out Of Place

Most of the time, calming your crazy makes everyone else insane.

Everything has its place. And it should be there.

Always.

That’s what I used to believe. Or rather, that’s what I used to enforce. But it cost me.

Friends became enemies, lovers became strangers, and businesses failed. And for what? Because I couldn’t bend? Because I freaked out when someone left the new roll of toilet paper on the counter instead of replacing the spent one? Because they put the 50-pound dumbbell where the twenty-five goes?

Seems trivial now; it does to me, anyway. Ten years ago I couldn’t have said that. But today is different.

I’ve spent enough time with people barking orders about things that don’t matter to discover the things that do. And honestly, most things aren’t worth my attention. Or yours.

It all comes down to choice.

Do I want to get lost in the details, fired up over all the little things, or do I want to dedicate the best me to solving the big problems? It’s like Mark Zuckerberg and that same shirt thing; better to have one less decision per day and free up some cognitive capacity for the things that really matter.

If It helps, picture a kid who always forgets to put away his dishes. He makes his bed, he’s almost always on time, and his grades are good. But you just can’t stand dishes on your counter, because plates go in cabinets, not on counters. So you ride him and justify it by claiming you’re making him a better man. But that doesn’t work.

I should know, I was that kid, and that was a long time ago. I always knew something was wrong with such trivial demands. I couldn’t place it, but I knew the man making those demands was broken.

First chance I got, I escaped. After a spell, I learned that dishes go in cabinets, but not because someone forced me, because I just did. I changed because I wanted to, not because someone nagged me or demanded it. The man making those demands, however, didn’t. And today, because he’s got to have everything where it goes, that man is more damaged than ever.

Cocooned into a dark and foreboding house on a hill, that man stews. Each blind is meticulously closed, preventing even a glint of sunlight to trespass within. Each room impeccably swept, untouchable for fear of infecting. And each dish, firmly and correctly, in the cabinet where it belongs. What started as something simple, left unchecked, has grown into a disorder. And all because he couldn’t just leave things where they were.

For a time, I carried that habit with me. But not anymore. It was simply too expensive. It wasn’t easy, and I still fight it, but these three tactics help.

1. I picture how petty a man looks when he lets the little things get to him.
2. I have fewer things, and fewer places to put them.
3. Most of the time, if I want something somewhere, I put it there myself without saying a word. No use trying to make someone else understand anything about me. Least of all a habit they may not have.

I still believe everything has its place, and probably should be in it. I just don’t let it get to me when it’s not. I save my energy for the things that make me a bigger man, instead of the things that just make me a smaller one.