THE BLK SPARROW

I gave myself a task today: clean my room. A pile of clothes and random junk had been sitting on my floor for weeks. I mean weeks. I looked at it and thought, This is fine, until I realized I was getting upset—not at anyone else, but at myself. Nobody hurt me. Nobody disrespected me. I was disrespecting myself by letting my space get like this.

I convinced myself that my time was better spent focusing on my blog. Even when I wasn’t actively creating, I was sitting around thinking about what I should do. But what I failed to realize was that my environment was dictating my well-being. The clutter was slowly building up my frustration. And as a homebody in a small space, it’s all too easy to put one thing down and suddenly have a whole mess on my hands.

I kept telling myself it would take at least a day to clean this one pile of clothes. And I just didn’t have the time. The psychological battle I go through every time I need to clean is fierce. I wonder how my parents kept the house so spotless when I was little.

I made a plan to set aside time every Saturday to clean something—even just a little bit. But today? I spent most of the day playing The Sims and listening to music. I had already given myself a deadline to get off the game and finally tackle the pile.

Now, it’s that time. I pause my game. I get up to face the battle of the day… this pile. I start putting things where they belong. Clothes in the basket. Shoes in the shoe pile. Trash in the bin. And then… I’m done.

Five minutes. FIVE MINUTES. That’s all it took to clean the mess I had been stressing over for weeks.

The Lesson?

Your mind plays tricks on you. It convinces you that things will take too long, that they’re too hard, that you just don’t have the time. Instead of planning, overthinking, and suffocating in the what-ifs—just do it. Because when you finally do, you’ll realize the only thing that was stopping you was you.