Today's Clutter

I had an interesting experience of my own...selfishness? I suppose, tonight. I was going down the stairs from the subway on the right side (walk right, pass left is the rule I always knew) and a young woman or girl was walking up. When we met, I stopped and we just looked at each other for a minute. Eventually, with something of reproach in her eyes, she went around me.

I spent the next few minutes justifying my actions to myself. In fact, there were good reasons for me not to go around her, chiefly the fact that it's more dangerous to go down than up and I feel safer holding the handrail. But reason didn't come into it. I stood and waited for her to go around me out of stubbornness, the desire to be right, and a need to dominate. And then I spent quite a few minutes judging myself for it.

What's interesting is that there's nothing inherently wrong in what I did. I decided it was wrong because of rules I was taught about polite behavior, and because of what I was taught about acceptable and unacceptable motivations for behavior. To my mind, my actions indicated weakness of character, based on what I was taught. If our positions had been reversed, though, I would not have thought that about HER.

I wonder if our rules and judgments about ourselves are clutter.

Anyway, today's clutter! Tonight when I got home I took my welcome mat out to the trash along with the garbage. This was a big one. My good friend Nicole gave me that welcome mat years ago in Oregon. It came with me to New York and I felt very fondly toward it because of who gave it to me. But at this point even washing it wouldn't make it look good. Over the years it has worn out and the once-beautiful picture of the rising sun was pretty much unrecognizable. Dirt was piling up underneath, as it had been years since I last washed it. So I took it out, and swept up the dirt. Goodbye, welcome mat! Thanks for holding my shoe dirt and reminding me of Nickle!