“THE more organised you are, better are your chances to achieve success in anything you do.” The wisdom of my mother’s oft-repeated and oft-ignored sentence dawns upon me every single day. Alas! Life isn’t easy to organise especially when you have put so much into it – from dreams, hard efforts, emotions, self-belief, self-doubts, conceit, etc, etc, to custom-made personality, house full of arrogance, wardrobe stuffed with ego, and gallons of make-up. Life isn’t easy to organise! When I was just my mother’s girl, life and efforts to organise it was much simpler. “Mummmaa…” and life was sorted. Now that I find myself on the other side of the fence, ‘Mummaaa…’ is someone else’s way to feel sorted while I am in a disarray. Being organised is an art that has a lot of science to it. One has to be logical from the word go. Be it the worries of the world or vagaries of the self, one must know what to keep close and what to discard. I dare say, I am too sentimental about people, things, properties and propensities and find it rather too much to discard. I am a collector. I hold my all collections of memories, matter and materials dear. But, as wisemen say, large collections of anything weigh upon you.

 

 

 

Like Karma, they seek justice. And I can hardly be a judge. Consequently, my wardrobe, cupboards, WhatsApp message box along with my heart and mind often beep a ‘Storage full’ message. I am forced to let go. Life makes you do the same things the hard way which you could have done easily listening to wisdom, my Mom would say. How true! But the world with me in it, would have been such a different place had wisdom been listened to, won’t it? Very gradually, I admit, I am surrendering to the wisdom of the world and making serious efforts to organise myself better, even if it means discarding not just things, but also memories, habits and even people. I am learning from others the scientific art of being organised. My dear husband, who, I dare say, is (just) one or two notches above me on the scale of ‘being organised’ offers much to learn from. His very organised life is based on a very firm footing of his expertise in the art of delegation. This is a very excellent, effective and time-tested method, highly recommended by most bosses of the world. Delegate work and responsibilities, remind people now and then of the to-dos, perfect that told-you-so look and at times, forgive people for their faults.

 

The end result is that while most of the times your work is done and life is organised, on the other occasion when it is not, you know who to blame. My daughter’s methods are equally rewarding. The other day, I told her to clean the room and it was done in no time. Most people are very happy when they find that whatever they have asked for is done in no time. Not mothers though! They suffer from this untreatable ailment called ‘knowing too well.’ So being a mother and knowing too well, I checked her neat-looking room. Most things seemed to be in place. But the timing of it perplexed me and I probed further. I opened her cupboard and the entire mess of clean, unclean clothes, bags, stray papers all bundled together came crashing down on me. The wisemen of the world call this method ‘the pushing under the carpet’ method of being organised. This one, too, is very effective in at least looking organised. All it requires is that one learns to take things on face value. You might think this method is faulty because looking is not the same as being.Well, if you allow yourself the luxury of a wider look you will realise that many societies, organisations, even nations have run and are being run through this method.

 

Most people, you see, judge by the look of ‘it’ rather than ‘it’ as the whole, (unless you are an anxious mother feeling the responsibility of the entire world on your shoulders). One attribute of wise people is they do not pry deep and take things at their face value. My daughter’s room was clean because it was visibly clean and since it is a very well-accepted method of organising things, I am putting my anxieties to rest and have added this method of organising things in my study curriculum. There are other methods of feeling organised like ‘looking the other way’, ‘steering clear’, ‘holding your peace’ etc, etc. All are of great utility if one wants to live a very ‘organised’ life. So many people in the world are like me holding dear memories of a world when uttering a single word would sort out problems.They must temper their hopes of a successful, beautiful, easy world with this worldly science of being organised. For life is no ‘Mummaa…!’ ■