Have you ever thought about what your house would look like if you didn’t take the garbage out? I guess we don’t ever give it much thought because we do it out of habit or out of necessity. We can physically see the garbage pile up in the kitchen and when the bin is full we tie the garbage bag up and take it outside so that it can be taken away by the garbage collectors, never to be seen or smelt again.
Some of the rubbish we throw out of our homes really and truly stinks and the longer and longer you leave it in the garbage bin, the viler the smell becomes.
A friend and I used to share an apartment. We also used to take turns cooking the dinner. One night he made a fantastic risotto but we didn’t finish all of it and like all forward thinking youngsters we thought at least one of us would take the left overs to work the next day. So we took the pot with what was left of the risotto and placed it in the fridge. It turns out that neither of us took any of that wonderful risotto to work the next day or the next day or the day after that. Being young and ambitious we both got busy at our respective jobs and so a week later when it came to making dinner again, we spotted the pot of risotto still neatly placed in the fridge. We looked at each other, each of us wondering how bad the sight was going to be. So my friend took the pot out of the fridge and upon further investigation saw that the white risotto had indeed maintained its colour. However, it appeared some of the pieces of risotto had miraculously learnt to wiggle and move. We watched in amazement as these white pieces moved and squirmed around the pot. Yes, you guessed it. MAGGOTS!! “Whoa!!” was the most that could come out of our collective vocabulary at the moment of realization. Needless to say we threw that maggot infested risotto right into the garbage bin without a second thought and the poor pot got the same treatment. I’m sure some of you reading this have similar, if not worse, stories
I’m going to jump right in here with some questions; how much garbage is piling up in your life? What are you leaving to sit around in your mind and let rot? It seems completely illogical that we make a concerted effort to ‘take the trash out of our homes” but we don’t come close to identifying and removing the “trash” that has built up in our lives.
There is this show on TV called “Ultimate Hoarders” and it showcases real life scenarios where people have collected so much during their lives and have never thrown anything away. As a result, these people end up never leaving home because all the stuff in their house is blocking their doors! In some cases, these folks have to be rescued from their own homes!
Most often in life when we either enter into a new relationship or want to pursue a goal, these negative, self depreciating thoughts pop up out of nowhere causing us to give up before we’ve even had a chance to have a real go at it. These thoughts, or “pieces of trash” as I like to call them, are as a result of things people have said to us or events we’ve experienced. We sub-consciously “hoard” these thoughts and start to believe them and the longer we let them sit in our hearts and minds, the more they start to stink, the more they rot.
When we look at things in this way, it makes us think about what thoughts we have let sabotage our lives, our relationships and our dreams.
Never again should you allow negative thoughts about yourself or your worth be the dictator of your destiny. Every time, and I mean every time, you smell a piece of trash come up in your mind, throw it out, that piece of trash and then some. You and I have something incredible to offer the world around us and doing that thing, living up to your potential, will require extraordinary effort, it will require discipline and it will require faith.
Walking the road of purpose in your life demands your full commitment, it needs focus and most importantly requires your heart and mind. There can be no tolerance for negative beliefs and depreciating thoughts.
I’m determined to take out the trash in my mind, to throw it out of my life so that it will never be seen or smelt again. What are you going to do?
