everyday

i was on vacation with rip recently and at the end of it we had accumulated a number of plastic bottles and some random clean paper trash. i said that i wished i could take home the plastic bottles to recycle them, but that i didn't have the space in my luggage. i did pack up our paper waste, however. rip made a comment about "i know you like your 'drop-in-a-bucket' thing but..." and i said something about how if you make the same decisions every day, it gets easier to make them.

i keep thinking about my reply and how true it is. not just about recycling, but about everything. seriously, everything. we're creatures of habit, and if you take small steps in changing your lifestyle (or whatever) eventually it will no longer be a real decision anymore, it's just be normal.

and this is some of the same reasoning behind the "drop-in-the-bucket" philosophy. no, you don't have the time today to clean our your whole closet. but you do have the time everyday to look at five pieces of clothing and decide what you want to keep, throw away, or donate. after a few weeks (or months) you'll have a clean closet. that "going-to-take-up-my-entire-weekend project" is now done. sure, in a way way it took up more time, but in a way it also took way less time. and you probably didn't stress about the whole thing as much.

and as i said earlier, if you make the same small decisions everyday, eventually you won't be making an effort to keep it up. so if you spend every night, for months, looking at five things in your closet until your wardrobe is nicely organized, you'll probably continue with this habit. you'll either keep your closet clean from now on, or you'll parse it down even more, or hopefully you'll move onto cleaning out your pantry supplies or bookshelf or something.