Feng Shui and Making Decisions
How To Position Yourself for Success
Sometimes, like once a month when I’m reorganizing some aspect of my home, I think: I should start a home organization business.
Then I wonder if being a Virgo is a respectable qualification.
I think some people might think so.
But, I determine that—if—I’m going to start a home organization business, then I need to study Feng Shui. So I look up books to order. Before I purchase one, I see the stack of books next to my computer.
This is a STACK I haven’t yet officially organized, because I don’t like to put a book away until I’ve read it. So, before I purchase a new book, I remember that although I am remarkably talented at organizing spaces, all of these books in my queue are a reminder of the fact that I already have a profession I love. I am a writer.
I have agreed to more writing projects than I can keep up with. There is truly nothing in the world I love doing more than (and I love doing a lot of things!) writing.
The whole reason I reorganize my office, or my closet, or my children’s toys is because I want my creative space to feel more harmonious. Why am I even harboring an idea of starting a home organization business?
Maybe because I am entrepreneurial at heart. Maybe because being a professional writer isn’t always so lucrative. Maybe because I am trying to get over a hump where I am fulfilled by the act of writing, but I am still figuring out how to produce output that leads to ample income. Maybe because I should write a short story about a woman who starts a home organization business called Four Corners.
Why would I call it Four Corners? I’ll tell you.
A year ago, my family and I moved into a four bedroom home. The fourth bedroom is supposed to be my office, but it also became the place where I put everything that doesn’t have anywhere else to go. In addition to desk, chair, printer—there is a cabinet with stationery, two unpacked boxes, all of the children’s art supplies and toys which they haven’t quite outgrown but no longer play with, recording equipment, musical instruments, plants, stuffed animals, cameras, a toddler bed, two extra chairs, etc. Can you believe I’m including an etc. like—what else is there in this two-hundred square foot room? I don’t mind tuning out the noise and focusing, and if I’m not careful, then housework will take up all of my writing time, so I have learned to tune out a lot of clutter, but this is ridiculous.
However, in addition to all the extraneous stuff that I definitely do not need in my home office, I never really organized the space in the first place. The movers put the desk down against one wall, and it remained there, and everything piled up around it.
So, a few weeks ago, I had had enough. I took out the toddler bed and everything else. I decided to move my desk against the wall with the window. I inherited my desk from my husband. It has a huge glass top that balances on top of two large metal file cabinets. In order to move the two hundred pound desk across the room I needed to inch one corner at a time. Every time I moved one of the file cabinets I had to be aware of all four corners of the glass desk top. If one of the corners wasn’t supported, it would tip and fall and probably fracture my foot, a floorboard, and the glass.
In the painstaking process of moving the desk across the room I had an idea. It was a breakthrough on how to make decisions.
For those of you who have been with me for a while you know I’ve experienced decision fatigue. But, who hasn’t? The average adult supposedly makes 35,000 decisions a day. (I wonder if my decision not to start a home organization business counts as one of mine for today?) So here is where the Four Corners comes in…
My husband and I have very different methods for making decisions. He likes to think of every possible option and outcome that he can foresee before he presses send on a choice. I like to be a little more spontaneous and go with my instincts. Additionally, he often reassess his decisions after he’s made them, whereas I assume whatever decision I made was the right one that I now have to make the best of.
So as I was inching the desk across the floor, remaining vigilant of all four crucial corners, I thought: what if we decide on four values that are most important to us, and when we make decisions we consider them from the vantage of those four pillars? This way, we are being more thoughtful than my overtly spontaneous method that I sneak up on him with, and less grueling than my husband’s infinitely exhausting one that he forces upon me.
I haven’t yet spoken to my husband about this, or tried it, but I still like the idea of it, so I thought I would pass it along.
And I’m sorry I can’t help you with your home organization needs, unless you’re willing to offer me a writing grant to accompany it.
As a bonus, for paid subscribers, I will send you a meditation this week inspired by the above.
