Athena Tan

Outer order contributes to inner calm

— Gretchen Rubin

I know understand why they say that having a messy desk is the key to some form of disorganised, chaotic, downward spiral of a downfall –

because we human beings understand the world we live in by windows – our own eyes, our own sight – the perspectives that our position at birth and places we trek to afford us to comprehend.

“Outer order” can refer to anything: the coordination of your clothes, the colour of your make-up and nails, the unblemished coat of paint on your car, the pattern of cig-butts in your ashtray — but most importantly, it refers to whatever you want to. That’s the point; you have the power to organise whatever you want and clean up the messes you’ve made, in your very own hands.

I think that I need to remember that more often. I’m currently feeling a certain lyric from Hair Too Long by The Vamps: need to reset my soul.

There is so much that needs setting straight in my life. Besides the spoons in bowls of yoghurt and the papers on my desk or the wires protruding from phones and laptops in my house, I need to set myself straight. I need to understand how to prioritize, how to segment, how to live life for myself and for the people and communities I love and care about.

Of course, dreams are flexible and aspirations change — and that’s the point. While self-care can be practised and a force used to govern yourself at this point in life presently, that does not mean that you – we – are selfish. It just means that we’re acknowledging how to love ourselves first before going ahead and painting that love all over town, in large, broad, sweeping brush-strokes of paint, on the buildings that need a new coat of paint.