While cleaning my bathroom a few days ago, I took a good long look at the rack of products next to my sink. It was a moment of clarity for me.
Although we now live in a world where guys are much more comfortable discussing, buying, and using personal care products, I still wasn’t sure what to make of the small library of shampoo, lotion, and soap I had built up over the past few months.
Every year, I wind up experimenting with some new, trendy combination of organic oils, scents, and soaps. And every year the rack next to my sink collects the failed experiments like vinyl records.
I have a habit of keeping these bottles long after the product has failed. I tell myself that maybe someone visiting me will like the product and might use it. I pick the bottles up off the ground when they fall. I keep them nicely arranged next to the 3 products I actually use every day.
This past weekend was the breaking point, I finally got my life together and threw out all the half-filled bottles. The bigger question is: Why did I hold on to them for so long? What is it that made me so unwilling to discard products that I knew weren’t a good fit?
Then I got to thinking about life more broadly. How often do we hold on to failed ideas, unhealthy friendships, and bad habits? How often do we give premium “shelf space” in our minds and lives to these things? If a product makes our skin break out, or makes our hair fall out, we follow the warning label on the back of the bottle…we “stop use and consult a doctor.” But when the old stuff in our lives causes our lives to break down into chaos or fall off track, we make all sorts of excuses to keep the old stuff around… nicely arranged… right next to the things we actually need to focus on.
There can be deep psychological stuff attached to these “old bottles” in our lives. Just like we would look sideways at someone who was using Instagram filters to cover up the side effects of bad beauty products… we have to be just as real with ourselves when we try to use material things to cover up the side effects of not dealing with the negative elements in our lives.
It’s never too late to take some time, step back, be honest with yourself & do some spring cleaning.
– Day G.
Host, Class of Hope & Change