First Day At The Office

Well, actually, I wanted to make the title "On Method", because although I think it's great that Obama becomes President of the U.S. today and that everyone's happy and hopeful, we should all keep a close eye on matters of perspective and expectations.

But still -

Congratulations, President Obama! You strengthen my belief that everything is possible.

In any event, I wanted to talk about method because writing out a WishList just isn't enough. Once you've sorted out your list in writing, you've got to go about ways of opening doors and easying their materialisation, djuknowwhaddamean.

I don't know how these shifts occur, but they are, though not unexpected, quite sudden. I'll give you an example of one such shift.

The one room in my house that needed looking into, really, as in, tidying up and freeing of clutter - was my home office. I've been meaning - for months now - to clear it out and organise it, but life has its own way of carrying on and the office just piled up with shit. Stuff in boxes, papers, stuff that belonged in other rooms, wires and cables and old magazines and 3 dog beds and blankets and shit.

For months the office sat there, waiting to be cleared.

And for months I'd go through it over 30 times a day as its doors lead onto my brand new garden.

I knew I had to clear it, and I knew it would take at least a full day to do it. A full day of hard labour, ploughing through every piece of paper, every Christmas card, receipt, visiting card, clip, book, nail polish container, document, incomplete set of furniture wheels, AAA-sized battery...

Now -

Here's the order in which things started positioning themselves in a way that would eventually lead to yesterday, the day I finally did something about the home office situation (and therefore of point (1) on my WishList below.

1) My new next door neighbours Ana and Adriana were here one night, together with my mate Julieta, who lives in Guadalajara. In fact, it was December 28th. They'd had to walk through the embarrassing office because I'd set the table and lit all the candles in the garden up and we were having wine and nibbles outside.

"What everyone needs to do in January", said Ana, glass raised, "is to throw away something that isn't useful anymore. The laws of the universe invoke us to start the new year with clearing out the old to make room for the new!"

"Funny you should say that," I blurted after a generous sip, "because I really need to clear out that office."

Ana stood up and took a good look at the room (while I cringed).

"Well, the problem here," she declared decisively, "is not only the clutter but the Feng Shui. Obviously. You can't have your desk there, you need to shift it. That's why you're getting nothing done"

"Yeah, right," I said, "whatever."

(Most disrespectful I am, really.)

Later that same evening, when the cold night had ushered us indoors and Ana and Adriana had taken a tour of the house (which is architecturally identical to the one they rent within this little complex), Ana once more declared:

"I *love* your house, man. It's really cool. But!"

(What? But?!)

"Yes?" I asked, curious.

"You could make it cosier by shifting the furniture round a bit. Here," she said, standing up and grabbing hold of the small table next to her. "May I?"

"Please!" I said, wondering what she intended.

But she only shifted it slightly so that the single drawer was now facing diagonally towards the middle of the living room (instead of table flush against the wall, drawer facing one of the sofas).

"Oh my God, that works!" I was surprised to hear myself say.

Lesson: Small shifts create big changes.

2) My mate Mati came round for lunch one day recently and told me about a thing called Family Constellations, ever heard of it? Neither had I, but basically, she told me that attending one of thei workshops had helped her increase her sources of income. So I looked it up and attended a Work Constellations workshop which was - apparently - a complete waste of time, but it made me think about why I was there, listening, role-playing, looking out the window and feeling cold, when I could be here, at my house, clearing my office.

Lesson: The energy required to carry out a daunting task may well come from an unexpected source, like a boring workshop.

Result?

A Feng Shui-friendly, uber-organised home office, ready for action.

Hurray!