Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter

The Anxiety Instinct

Sometimes I’m reminded that, in the end, we are really just animals. Highly evolved, no doubt, with art and culture and wit, but ultimately ruled by instincts. Sometimes those instincts save us, and sometimes, because our world is so different from that of our prehistoric ancestors, they trip us up.

So many of my clients have so much. I don’t mean that they are rich, or that they have huge houses and fabulous wardrobes; rather, I mean that they have excessive quantities of certain items: cabinets full of shampoo, hundreds of sweaters and boxes upon boxes of tea (right now, at least five of you think I’m talking about you). As someone who can count her boxes of tea on one hand while simultaneously counting her sweaters on the other, I’m always curious what leads my clients to seek such abundance, and I think I have an idea.

As animals, we seek protection. We want to protect ourselves and our families. We want to provide. As silly as it seems, the impulse to “not run out” is real and powerful. Even though running out of shampoo is not really life-threatening, somehow, for some of us, it feels like a big deal. Clothes, on the other hand, are no longer just protection from the elements, they are also a kind of armor and a kind of currency: “This sweater will keep me warm, and make me look fabulous, like a woman who has her act together and whose children are destined for the ivy league.” When you stop to think about it, you know that having thirty black sweaters is absurd, but at the point of purchase it feels like insurance, against cold as well as obsolescence. We buy and buy and buy. We are slaves to our impulses, even though, evolutionarily, most of us have more than enough nourishment and ample protection from the elements, and not even the nicest sweater will improve your child’s SAT score.

There is an irony here: for our prehistoric ancestors, traveling light and being fleet of foot were good survival techniques, while we, instinctively hoarding, weigh ourselves down with possessions, so that moving becomes a nightmare of epic proportions.

We are all anxious now. We should be. But shoes and toiletries can’t protect you. You want to be nimble, able to change course in a changing world, not weighted down with relics of the past. If you want to shop, buy a mask, buy some stamps, but in this upside-down, pandemic world, I think we’d all be better served by concentrating on letting go and learning to live with less.