When I was a child, I don't really understand the reason why should we tidy up things. My mother loves tidying up and I got into a lot of troubles when I didn't meet her standard of tidy. The first year living alone, my room was a total mess, I lived like a pig. I didn't care where I put things and everything was just everywhere. At that time, I didn't see it as a problem, it was just my reality. And it went for about a year. I survived one year of living alone without being clean and tidy.
To think in retrospect, it wasn't about living in a mess doesn't matter, it's just that my life when I was a freshman in college were scheduled enough, that I didn't see the necessity of living tidily. You see, in my campus for the first year, you already had this class package where the faculty member decided what kind of mandatory class you needed. So for a year, I feel like may campus had taken care of me and my class, I only had to take care of my food. The second year came. I planned my classes but not all of them meet my expectation (which was avoiding morning classes), I took an organizational activity, and that was when things get messy.
Now I figured, if you have a messy life, the first thing you have to do is tidy up your room. Put all those messes into its designated places, make a place for everything. You know why? It keeps you sane! Read this vignette, for example
Your are not a morening person, but you have to wake up early every Monday for a class. Early as in seven o'clock class early. But last night you were having so much fun or you have so many things to do that you sleep late, like in two a.m late. Curse the universe, you woke up at six thirty and you only have half an hour to get ready. it takes fifteen minutes walk from your dorm to your class, so fifteen minutes to get ready. And your room is a mess. You don't know where your socks are, okay you decided to not use socks. You realize you don't have any clean clothes because you forgot to do the laundry and all your dirty clothes just piled up in the corner of the room where you hope you won't see it, and you really ended up not seeing it, which was the problem. You haven't charge your phone and it's dead and probably because you can't see where is your charger. And your rush to class, running like a maniac, reach the class two seconds before you professor did, sit at the back of the room, only to remember, you forgot both your phone and your laptop. The only thing that you bring to class is a ballpoint, your wallet (which haven't leave your bag for thousands of years) and a sweater from last night going out.
The thing about living a messy life is that you probably forgot a lot of things in your life too. Because you don't have a place for things and you don't have time for things. Being messy is a habit. And a habit does not just stay within the border of your room, you bring habits everywhere you go. When you bring something everywhere you go, it becomes part of your life. So, yeah, the mess has become part of your life.
Being messy has never brought its harm when you have authority figures taking care of your mess, like your parents. But freedom comes with a cost. and one of them is responsibility. Once you are free from authority figures, once you are free to plan your life, to do as you please, you are then responsible to at least, get your shit together. And trying to tidy your shit up can be a good start. If you make your bed in the morning, you would arrive home after a long tiring day to a made bed that you can instantly use. And it's comfortable. If your floors are clean you wouldn't step on annoying things that would waste your times to curse or cleaning your feet. If you know where your belongings are you wouldn't have to waste another second to search for it.
I came to this realization the hard way. It was only after my life was only about juggling one messy thing to another that I realized, I can't continue this pattern. Something needed to change. I need a system for myself so I can live healthily. Then I figured, anything that needs a system has to be done systematically. I have to be systematic. If I can't do it to my behavior yet, at least I will make my things systematic. I will put my keys in the same place every day. My towel, my shoes, my books, my laptop, my phones, and its charger. Everything is at the same place every day that I can take things with my eyes closed. The next thing I knew, I rarely left things or lose things and you know what that makes me? A more reliable person than I was yesterday.
So, get your shit together! Because nobody will do it for you
