Chapter 11 – Obstacles to an Orderly Life

Now we come to the part of the book where I tell you about Bob, Jane and Ed. They each had made up their minds to live balanced, orderly and productive lives but each had a major obstacle in her or his way. You may have read about Bob, Jane and Ed in every other self-help book you ran across and they all had different problems each time! As you have probably guessed, Bob, Jane and Ed are fictitious characters, but they have happily volunteered their services to illustrate issues that various authors like myself have wanted to tell you about. So please bear with me while I tell you the stories they have here, and see if any fits your situation. 

Let’s look at a young man named Bob. He lives in a small apartment all by himself. He has stacks of paper, beer bottles and plates of unfinished food all over the place. He has a to do list that he wrote months ago, but he just can’t find it. He wishes that he could get organized, but he always figures that he can get to it tomorrow. One of the reasons that he never seems to get around to it is that he is haunted by his past. His father, a military man, was obsessively organized. Everything in the house had to be spic-and-span clean, every drawer had specific contents and nothing could be left lying around at the end of the day. Whenever Bob had the gall to complain about this excess, he was strictly disciplined. So he grew up keeping his mouth shut and his father died of a heart attack before Bob had any opportunity to have an adult conversation with him.

Now that Bob is on his own, he is still stuck in an argument that he never really had with his father. Every time he thinks of cleaning out his apartment, the thought comes to mind, my dad would really like that, wouldn’t he? The idea that somehow, tidying up his living space would somehow validate his father’s excesses, while invalidating his own complaint, haunted Bob. That idea is not true, in fact, but the thought keeps Bob stuck in his own personal rut.

Poor Bob is under what is, in many spiritual circles, called a curse. The darkness that held his father captive has taken a hold on Bob’s spirit and won’t let go. As order mages, it is part of our calling to understand curses and undo them. The unravelling of a curse like this involves several steps, and only Bob himself can do them. First, he needs to see his father clearly. It is true that his father was excessive. Bob has always been right about that. This doesn’t mean that his dad was a bad human being. His father had wounds from his own childhood that he himself had never processed. Also, Bob needs to keep in mind all his father’s good qualities without excusing the bad.

The second step may seem the hardest. Bob needs to forgive his father. This is not an easy thing to define. Forgiveness does not ignore a wrong, nor does it demand apology. What I mean by this is that forgiveness is the act of setting his own heart free, declaring that he does not need anything from the other person to heal himself. An apology is certainly due, but since the offender is deceased this is not possible. What is possible is for Bob to accept the bad things that happened in his life and move on. Bob has the freedom to recognize that life is a gift, and that all lives contain wounds as well as joys. The forgiver accepts the wounds in life, not because they are just, but simply because they happened and cannot un-happen. Acceptance opens the door again to joy in the present and in the future. A wise minister once told me that forgiveness is like peeling layers off an onion. It usually doesn’t happen all at once.  However, as soon as Bob starts the process of forgiveness, he will begin realizing the freedom that comes with it.

With the freedom that comes with forgiveness, Bob can begin to see that how he lives his life really has nothing to do with his father or anyone else except himself. He can clean up and organize his home and his life simply because it’s good for Bob! He need no longer feel embarrassed when visitors come to his apartment. He can enjoy the health benefits of a clean home. He can bask in a higher degree of self-esteem.

Jane’s situation was a bit different. Jane’s mom was single working mother with (seemingly) no time to clean or plan social or recreational events. This resulted in many opportunities missed in Jane’s childhood. Also, she had to endure negative comments by friends who sometimes came to visit. Jane was even called a “loser” by one of her classmates, a name which stuck in her heart for many years because she had come to believe it.

As an adult, Jane also felt easily overwhelmed and inadequate. She did manage to get a job and do reasonably well for herself. She married and had a child. However, before her daughter reached the age of six, Jane’s husband left her, and the term “loser” hung over her like a dead weight. Sensing that she needed help. Jane visited her friendly neighborhood order mage, who was also a therapist. The therapist discerned that Jane was a victim of depression and recommended psychiatric support.

Healing for Jane, once her brain was able to move beyond depression mode, involved letting go of the loser label. Building self-confidence was a one-step-at-a-time process. As she took on one small task and made it her own, she gained more hope for succeeding at the following one. In time she was able to pass the confidence on to her daughter as well. In Jane’s case, the forgiveness was directed toward the peers who had insulted her and treated her badly. She came to realize that none of that was really about her, but about the insecurities and woundedness of her peers. In the process of forgiveness, Jane gave the term loser back to the one who had said it. This broke the curse Jane was under and she began to pursue her rightful place as a winner.

While we are on the subject of a bully victim, I’d like to notice that Jane reacted to her bullying by turning inward. This caused her to avoid future social opportunities and experiences. Many of us, however, experience the temptation to turn our reaction outward. By this I mean, to go on to become the bully. When we are unable to confront and make peace with the bully (not the bullying), we can feel a need to balance the scales by attaining the bully pulpit ourselves. This dynamic is obvious when those abused in youth become abusers. However, I think we can all relate to the impulse to drive aggressively when we have been cut off in the past. What we need to know, then, is that there is a third alternative. We can achieve and demonstrate the inner strength to neither spend our lives hiding nor to become the bully ourselves. This is true growth and true healing.

 Ed had a different situation entirely. He wanted to get organized, put his things away in their proper places, but getting started always seemed to be too hard. His problem revolved around procrastination. I can talk about Ed because in my youth I was a terrible procrastinator. I would put tasks off over and over again and feel very bad about myself for doing so.

From what I have read online, and from my own experience, I believe that procrastination is based on fear and can be a terribly crippling problem. Fear of a difficult task, fear of drudgery or fear of confrontation, if that is the task at hand. The only way that I have ever found to get rid of fear is by doing the thing that one is afraid of. In some cases, it is possible to do the deed by increments. One can clean the house by working on one room per day if desired. Skydiving, on the other hand, is a little more difficult to break into pieces. You yourself might break into pieces if you tried.

Getting back to Bob, things began to change for him through an encounter with a friend. One evening, whilst having a favorite beverage with his friend Tim, Bob made a lighthearted reference to himself as a first-class procrastinator. Tim, who happened to be a closet order mage, started to tell his own tale of youthful procrastination. He confessed the many fears that had formed the roots of his problem. He told Bob about his old fears of confrontation, and how, over time, he learned to speak up, starting by expressing disagreements in trivial matters when talking with intimidating persons. When he discovered that he would not be shot for doing so, Tim took courage to address more substantive matters. Tim learned to his wonderment that most of the times, when he chose to confront another person over an issue, the end result was usually positive. Not always, but he never did experience the worst-case scenario that he had kept imagining.

Since it was obvious that Ed was listening with more than casual interest, Tim went on to share how he had overcome procrastination in other areas. Tim had made a resolution on New Year’s Day to overcome his procrastination and began by making a list of all the tasks he had been putting off. He went on to rate each task on a scale of one to five based on the level of difficulty. He then scheduled each task out on his planner, breaking large tasks down into smaller steps. Tim chose the easier tasks to do first, figuring that the momentum he gained by doing them would help him start out on the big ones afterward. Although he had to admit he did not complete several of the tasks on the original timetable, he did have them all done within a few months and that had been a hallmark achievement for him.

Ed was very encouraged by Tim’s story and said that he hoped to be able to imitate it in his own life. Tim offered to serve as an accountability partner to give Ed additional motivation to move forward and Ed readily agreed. They met at Ed’s place the following Sunday, and the work of healing had begun.

Another obstacle may come with the notion that order, characterized as it may be by rules and procedures, stifles freedom. I submit that the opposite is actually true. Planning, prioritizing and efficiency increases one’s free time and ultimately nurtures an individual’s ability to live the life that is most desired. To those who get triggered by terms such as often describe an orderly life, I suggest that you examine the wounds, often but not always inflicted in youth, that taught you to think badly of productivity and organization.

My story was a bit different, but I had to overcome my personal demons before I could claim to have embraced an orderly, balanced lifestyle. Your story is unique to you of course, but I hope that when you find a need, you will be able to recruit allies who can help light the way for you. Who knows, maybe a friend of yours is an order mage who does not even know it yet. The process of healing can take years, so be patient with yourself. After you have broken the curses that haunt your life, may you discover the joy of helping another person find freedom as well!

Perhaps the biggest obstacle we face as order mages is that no matter how carefully we plan and how disciplined our schedules, life sometimes throws us curve balls. Sooner or later we will either lose a job, get divorced, come down with a major illness, or lose a loved one. These tragedies throw our lives into chaos without any regard for the wisdom of our choices. If you or someone you care about is in the midst of a situation like this, there are no words of comfort that suffice. Time is required to adjust to a major change and to mourn the loss of what was. That being said, I would like to point out that those whose lives are organized, those with savings and budgets and ducks in a row are better equipped to deal with life’s curve balls in the first place and will likely rebound more quickly.