There are some things that, for my purposes, comprise this concept.
Living dangerously is going to be more about facing personal dragons and with intent, slaying them. This is going to be about doing hard and difficult things, having courage, changing the formula.
So how do you change the formula? What must you and I do in order to achieve different results? What do we need to do in order to improve our lives while not harming others?
Today, I started by identifying three articles of clothing. Not a huge number, but something small and manageable. These pieces of cloth no longer serve me; I don't wear them. This clothing only takes up space in two places...my home and my memory.
Notice I delineated memory. Memory is a tricky thing. Many times we attach memories to things. The old baseball glove, the outdated CD or cassette tape, or an article of clothing.
I don't fit the standard definition of a hoarder, but I do have things. A lot of them. Things that make my house feel cluttered which in turn clutter my life. Stuff represents a couple of things to me; money spent and memories.
Memories, or more precisely losing memories, are one of my fears. I have the uncanny ability to look at an article of clothing and tell you when I wore it the first time, or what I was doing that made a memory that I attached to that garment. I can tell you something special that happened while I wore that particular garb. That makes getting rid of articles of clothing a little bit off-putting. More than that, taking that action of getting rid of something I no longer wear has an element of danger to it. Right or wrong, does getting rid of this item mean I am going to lose the memory attached to it?
The thought that I will lose something precious from my memory makes taking that action dangerous.
Woah. Something to wrap your brain around. What are we holding on to that no longer serves us in any practical way, other than to be a keeper of memories?
And, if memories are the impetus behind hanging on to an object, how can we keep the memory but rid ourselves of that which creates clutter and chaos?
Getting rid of clothes no longer worn, books no longer read, tossing old and broken stuff can be scary.
Yet, there is a way to keep those memories and lose the chaos. We have smart phones to take photos, we have computers to keep notes. Take an object or two a day, hold it, remember, take a photo, open a word document and type out the bibliographical information and the key concepts uncovered and then set the object aside in a box to give away, or if unusable for another life, to throw away (or even recycle if possible).
Grieve for a moment if that's what you must do, but rest assured that the information you want to remember about that thing is still available in another form.
Getting rid of the old, makes way for the new if that is your goal. Getting rid of the old also opens up new spaces for rearranging furniture, decorating with feng shui and creating a clutter-free environment.
And getting rid of the old just may mean something more in our everyday lives like more organization, more relaxation, more simplicity, more peace.
In the end, it's what we really want - to be off the hamster wheel for a while and achieve calm.
This is a risk I'm willing to take.