Order

It occurred to me yesterday that getting the house “in order” is not an underrated part of spiritual work. Here’s what happened: I had been driving a rickety old car that had served me well for a number of years. The thoughts of what to do about the car, whether to repair it, or sell it, or junk it, or buy a new one, how much to spend on a new one, whether or not to buy a truck or a sedan, whether to keep waiting or act now, whether to buy used from a dealer or used on the private market, whether to wait until winter or buy in the summer, all coursed my mind. Endless, endless thoughts. Triggers for these thoughts were common and included whenever I saw my car, or was driving my car or seeing cars for sale or seeing used car dealerships or seeing cops that might notice the loud exhaust or lack of an inspection sticker. In short, triggers occurred quite often and were numerous.

I pass by a used car dealership on a drive I take multiple times a week. With the car situation in mind I scanned the lot for deals or vehicles I might be interested in. For anyone who’s watched their thoughts and internal reactions many times over knows this pattern: an external percept kicks off an internal reaction which is perceived and reacted upon, and so on. It takes a certain amount of energy, and a certain number of mental cycles. If one is trying to conserve additional cycles and energy from being dissipated then a turning away of the internal head is required to avoid a cascade of, let’s say, tertiary reactions and so on. This reactive process happened each and everytime I passed by that particular used car dealership.

The car issue eventually came to a head, and through some good fortune and financial preparation it solved itself after a few stress-laden days of details. The next time I drove by the dealership I noticed a peculiar thing. My mind reacted to the lot as per its usual habit (the power of habit!) and immediately thereafter the mental reaction was, “Wait, the car problem is solved.” Since this portion of the house had been gotten “in order”, the effort to turn the head from a now far less “sticky” train of thought was very easy and required almost no effort. The mental reaction and boil-over that had been common over the past few months was absent and it all seemed uninteresting. The profound difference in energy spent was notable and I saw the incredible value of taking care of basic disorder in our houses, both physical and psychological. It saves us energy and reduces distractions. For those of us who have become energy misers, this can be a very useful tool.

A caveat: The same which holds true for all efficiency projects holds true here also; the rate of return is largest for the biggest offenders of energy expenditure. That means that if, for example, my financial situation is so bad that I worry incessantly about paying the rent, tweaking how often I do my laundry a week won’t really register in the efficiency column. Getting my financial house “in order”, however, will! Get the idea? Big stuff first!