The parish has been running the ‘Organization and Storage Expert’ program since last October. It is one of the night programs newly established by the local district Office, Lifelong Learning Center, the parish only provides a location. It is said that as soon as online applications began, student recruitment was closed. These days, it is becoming a popular course because you can earn money by obtaining a professional certification.
The fact that more and more people are entrusting their organizing and storage to professionals is proof that they own too many items that they cannot handle on their own. In addition, organization and storage are becoming more and more important as people prefer a simpler and more tranquil atmosphere by putting order into their lives and space.
We can say that we are living in an era where the ‘desire to consume’ and to organize, to make living space simple and efficient are in conflict with each other. Organizing is said to be ‘separating necessary items from unnecessary items and boldly disposing of unnecessary items.’
So, if you are a person who knows the difference between ‘needs’ and ‘wants’ and follows your needs, you will be a person who is good at organizing things on your own without receiving help from others. A need becomes difficult when not present. It does not have to be a need to resolve it, and no longer a need when resolved.
However, desire makes you anxious, makes you think that you might need it later, and gives rise to other desires. Since desires are generally larger and more specific than needs, you need to consider the necessity and nonnecessity of the items you are organizing. Knowing that the standard for organizing is ‘necessity’ remains primary.
Therefore, the first topic for the organizing expert program-- ‘Understanding organizing and storing,’ emphasizes ‘throwing away’. The object of ‘throwing away’ is, of course, the person's individual desire. When you give up and throw away your desires, only what you need remains, and life and space become more relaxed. Isn’t this what it's all about? Therefore, we must realize that organizing things is not limited to simply moving or disposing of things to another place, but organizing life itself.
Isn't life itself tangled with needs and desires? Moreover, is it not our self-portrait to even desire what others desire? In other words, my desires may often be the desire that others have, and my possessions and consumption are manipulated and forced. If we do not live according to our needs, we have no choice but to become slaves to our desires. Therefore, organizing one's life means breaking the chain of obsession with endless desires and practicing one's will to pursue a life of 'necessity'. The life of ‘necessity’ is based on the 'spirituality of emptiness'. That is the wilderness life of the Israelites in the Old Testament and the ‘life on the road’ that Jesus walked in the New Testament.
The year is coming to an end. One of the things to do at this time is to look back and organize your life. As a believer, you need time to calmly reflect on your footsteps and reflect on how you spent each day, what happened, whether you had any regrets or mistakes, and whether there were any difficult, happy, or rewarding experiences. Perhaps it is also a time to be like the bamboo that stops momentarily to form nodes as it grows. From the outside, the time spent reflecting is a waste of time that prevents growth, but that time is the time to organize one's life. When you get rid of desires that lead to obsession and make choices toward a life of necessity, another new path opens.
