Hi Dave,

>Would you consider a change in the way you are
>thinking about your situation and the "stuff"
>you are dealing with?

Sure, I am open to all kind of new things in order to get out of this trap.

> Along the lines of: feelings are ok? (...)

I don't know if feelings are ok or not. I am a very emotional man, highly sensitive to what happens around me. Sometimes I wish I had a knob to turn off my sensitivity (being more rational?), but I think it doesn't work that way.

> you are not your feelings unless you choose to be.

Well, I don't think I am my feelings, but they undoubtely play a key role in my life along with my thinking.

I have a feeling (ha!) that most of the time my feelings determine my thinking and not the other way around.

But of course, it's just a feeling. I believe (think) that feeling/thinking are intertwined and interact all the time.

> The objects on my library shelf are (or were)
> not "stupid",

On the stupidity of objects, well, I think you are right. Calling them stupid is the way I found to position myself in some kind of smart place. As if decluttering had something to do with being intelligent.

Yes, I think I've been carrying on this internal and never ending war between smart me and dumb me for long years now.

What a complicated way of saying that I am a perfectionist. Yes, I am complicated 🙂

Today was another hard day... I did very little, feel deeply frustrated.

Hi Karl,

No, not Brazil. A little bit South and another little bit West.

You're in Brazil, right? I was going to make that claim earlier, before you made it easier by telling us which hemisphere. 🙂

Hi back to you.

Would you consider a change in the way you are thinking about your situation and the "stuff" you are dealing with?

Along the lines of: feelings are ok? Everybody has feelings, you can't make them go away or stop coming to you. But, you are not your feelings unless you choose to be. You are not guilty because you did not do more-flip the attitude and say something like: I practiced doing the things I need to learn to do. I used the physical, emotional and mental strength I had that day to make a change in my life that gets me closer to living the way I would like to live.

The objects on my library shelf are (or were) not "stupid", there are (or were) just many of them that no longer have utility in my life. They once met a need in my life, but they do not currently have any value or utility to me. I was able to practice thinking that way about those things on the shelf and clear out the items that are not useful to me for the way I want to use my living space and live my life now. Having had that practice, I can now carry that idea forward to another area of my house/apartment that has been emotionally harder for me to deal with.

Hi Dave,

Thank you for your answer!

It's funny I actually have some of those velcro things. I tried them, but there was a time when I connected and disconnected things all the time and I ended up removing them. Besides the fact that they somehow remind me of my ex-marriage (I can even remember when I bought them) I think it will be a good idea to start using them again. I'm not pluging/unpluging things any longer now.

I think I've seen some kind of flexible tubes to pass the cables trough that seemed "cleaning friendly".

We used to have Home Depot here around 2000, then they went away and now we have some stores called "Easy" that are more or less alike Home Depot (more less than more).

Velcro cable ties.
My son gave me a few ties that were like these.

http://www.amazon.com/Velcro-One-Wrap-Cable-Ties/dp/B002CT8GIK

In the States we have a building supply chain called Home Depot. He got his there. I have used mine for something a little different than what you are doing, but I think these might help in making nice bundles of cable.