Positive Reinforcement from a Negative Action

Do you have a hard time letting things go?  I do.  I have an old sports jacket in the closet that I kept thinking that I would wear when I would lose weight.  It has been in there so long that it is out of style.  In that same closet are nice winter jackets and a couple of dress suits that are just a little too snug, but I hate to give them away because I like them and hate to get new ones that I might not like.

My clothes closet is full of shirts, pants, and other garments that need to go to Good Will.  I gave most of my old VBS shirts away not too long ago.  There was no way I was going to wear those 3X regular t-shirts.  They are not long enough or big enough after a few washes.  There are a few dress shirts that I like, but they are too small.  Wow, I sound like a broken record.

Then there is my work shed.  I have collected so much junk I cannot get in it.  I decided that I would throw out some things that I saved, but have not used in months, heck years.  As I readied each of them for the trashcan, I had mixed emotions, got sentimental.  My thought is that if I throw it in the garbage today, I will need it next week.  That has happened plenty of times in the past.

I have a system of collecting things, but honestly is there a need for a 1986 am/fm Citation car radio.  I keep thinking that someone might need one.  There is the old 8-track player beside a couple of more radios and there are all kinds of speakers.

I did break down the other day and threw away some old spark plugs, radiator and heater hoses, a couple of old belts, and vacuum lines.  I thought that was a sign of improvement.

I really want to have a big cleaning every time I try to locate something I have filed away and cannot remember which file I placed it.  I spend precious minutes looking in my converted fish tackle box for nuts, bolts, screws, and washers that I could run to Ace hardware and buy.

People will challenge me to throw stuff away.  I say I would but I might need it.  Problem is that happened way too much.  I am constantly repairing things with my collected resources.  If not for that, I would do as many corporations have done in recent years and that is clear out my inventory.  If I did that I would not need all those converted tackle boxes, converted toolboxes, nor all the storage shelves.

Speaking of shelves, I brought  home some wire shelves that my sister-in-law was throwing away when she sold her home.  Somewhere in the shuffle, the mounting brackets disappeared.  The wire shelves were fairly new, so when I hung them in the laundry room, I bought some new brackets at Ace Hardware.

I had three shelves left over that, I used in by workshop.  I decided to be creative, most people call it rigging, and I used some old Support Lift Struts from an old 1986 Trans Am rear hatch window as brackets to hold my shelves.  They worked like a charm.  I had two Support Lift Struts from the hood of the Trans Am that I used on the second shelve. 

There it was. I got a fix for my addiction of collecting things.  Psychologists would say that I got positive reinforcement from a negative action.  That being my habit was good and justifiable.

Some folks would tell me that I am good at saving stuff and using them in creative inventions.  Others would encourage me to buy a bigger building for my collecting of stuff.  But, I know that I need to rid my shed of stuff that I will never use and hinders me from using my time wisely.

You know the same is true in our Christian walk.  Sometimes we have to let go of stuff to make room for better things and opportunities.  If we are not careful, we have a tendency to collect stuff in our lives that hinders us from being productive.  The writer of Hebrews says it like this:  



Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. . . (Hebrews 12:1 KJV).



Then sometimes I feel like Lazarus.  He was dead and Jesus raised him to new life.  Lazarus was alive, a resurrected person, but the old grave clothes kept him from really living.  He would have never been capable to achieve new things by keeping on grave clothes.



And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go (John 11:44 KJV).