The Things That Go

The conversation with Christy was illuminating. “If you’re feeling overloaded, just figure out what you don’t want to do anymore,” she said. Easier said than done!

For some time now, I have realized that I’m involved in too many things, and that there are some where I really should put more effort into it if I were to truly say that I was involved at all anymore.

It’s time, I think, to do a little housecleaning. Let’s start with the easy time-wasters: Mailing lists. Way too many. First one on the list was Board membership in an organization devoted to people in certain types of life transitions.

Yeah. That’s gone. What about the affiliated mailing list for members of the organization? Well, I plan to remain a member, but I’ll resign as Board member and webmaster. Way too much to there, and after four years driving, it’s time for someone else to take the wheel. I guess the only way it will happen is if I park it and refuse to hop back in the driver’s seat.

Balsa-sailplanes? Yeah, I don’t need that one. It’s all about people scratch-building their own sailplanes. I like my sailplane, but not that much. Gone.

Exmormon? Yeah, let’s make that web-only. Maybe I’ll be interested in perusing the messages one day, but I don’t need them in my inbox.

Human_ism? Yep, I’m a Humanist, I don’t have much desire to talk about it in detail these days. Gone.

freethinking_unschoolers? Uh, this was a group for home-schooling children without relying on religion-based curricula. The fact is, the vast majority of home-schoolers do so for religious reasons, and the vast majority of home-schooling materials pander to this bias. Yeah, I lost interest in this about 3 minutes after I joined 3 years ago. Don’t know why I’m still a member.

More decisions like this, on down the line, eliminating the stuff I don’t use or don’t want in my life. Next is going home and doing the same thing. Run the drill through the old hard drives filled with data I have not used in years. Chuck out the old CAT-3 and coaxial cables stuffed into the closet in hopes that one day they will be useful. Toss the things I know I haven’t used in two years or more.

It’s painful, because I remember when each of these things — the mailing lists, the computing supplies, etc. — were useful, important, and functional to me. I strongly suspect there may be some data on those old 9GB drives, like old copies of songs that I never finished, that may have important data I’d like to keep. But if I never get around to actually inventorying them, how different is that from just destroying them and being done with it?

You gotta break some eggs to make an omelet.

Let’s get crackin’.