Clean Where The Eye Goes First
Clean Where The Eye Goes First My black sweatshirt had gotten some crud on it. Nothing major, just a bit of dust, and debris that it picked up as I was moving things around the storage facility. I naturally just wanted to get it off so I could go back to having a reasonably clean presentable appearance. Not That I was planning on meeting anyone that day, but you never know who might show up. Besides, I felt better not having crud all over my clothes. So, I brushed most of it off with my hand. Some little bits just stayed stuck. You know the tenacious little buggers that hang on for dear life to some thread of hope. Brushing didn't seem to help any. They might move a little, then spring back, or they wouldn't budge at all. I had to resort to picking them off one by one. At first, I was a little overwhelmed and didn't know where to start. Then I remembered that verse “whatever thy hand finds to do, do it with all thy might.” (Ecclesiates 9:10) And for some reason, my brain interpreted that as “Clean Where The Eye Goes First!” In other words, “Start where you are but just start.” So, I did that, and noticed something very profound. (Well, profound for me at least.) By starting with the pieces my eye went to first, my stress level started dropping precipitously. Perhaps it was because, I was actually taking action. Doing something instead of just sitting there fretting about my problems. As each piece of crud was removed, my stress level dropped just a bit more. I saw a piece and plucked it off. Then looked and plucked off the next piece I saw. Over and over til I felt satisfied. It wasn't always the biggest pieces that got plucked off first, and it wasn't that I followed some sort of pattern or system. Other than pick off the next piece that caught my eye. I wasn't very strategic about it at all. There was no particular goal. Things weren't very well or clearly defined. I had no real way to measure my progress other than my general feeling of malaise about the way my sweatshirt looked.