I started off this year with a great sense of optimism and peace, but little to no direction. That all changed on one of my days off when I decided to start organizing my room. Having tried in the past to do too much in one day and then gotten discouraged from doing any further organizing, I decided to take it slow. Each day I would spend a few minutes straightening it up; some days I got a lot accomplished and others just a little, but I always did something to decrease the clutter and increase the amount of useable space.
Satisfied that I had accomplished something and gotten off to a good start, I settled down and listened to an episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast. This one featured Jordan Peterson, whom I had heard a bit about but never looked into before that day. One of the things he talked about in that episode was the importance of cleaning your room. I nearly fell off the couch when he said that. Of all the things I could have done that day, I happened to start cleaning my room and then listen to Peterson talk about that very thing (being previously unfamiliar with Peterson, I had no idea that was something he talked about). That was one of the clearest moments of serendipity in my life and my interest in Peterson immediately skyrocketed. He discussed how cleaning your room will have positive effects on the people you live with by inspiring them to make positive changes in their lives, it gives you a sense of purpose while doing it and satisfaction when it’s completed, it increases your confidence and competence in changing things for the better, and that it’s an important to get your own life together before you try to fix the problems in the world.
This served as a good motivator to keep cleaning my room at least a few times a week; I don’t work on it every day, but I still work on it a lot more than I did before this year. Additionally, once I got the ball rolling on one positive activity, it became easier to add additional ones. I’ve spent a lot of time this year cleaning my room, learning Spanish, reading great books, exercising, improving myself, and working toward self-employment. I think that moment of serendipity about cleaning my room came in right when I needed it gave me the right motivation and direction to gradually move myself into an all-around better position in life. I’ve embedded a short clip of Peterson talking about the importance of cleaning your room if you’d like to check it out. I hope it helps you as much as it’s helped me.