OMER DAY 2: Taking Note of What Has Become "Clutter"

OMER DAY 2: Taking Note

Any good accounting starts from knowing what you have.  Therefore, I'm dedicating this first week of Omer (ac)counting to inventory.  During my engineering days, I once had a manufacturing job that involved streamlining the workspaces for certain processes.  Before we could make improvements to the infrastructure, we had to first identify what we had to work with.  Instead of coming in and knowing the changes to make, I'd sit with my teammates and figure out what they had in their workspaces and understand why it was there.  Often, we'd find a tool that was taking up valuable space on their worktable that had no need to be there, but it didn't "live" anywhere else.  It became so much a part of their everyday work environment, that the person who used the workstation no longer noticed the tool, but instead worked around it.  A few people did not even include such large tools in the list of objects we had asked them to make that were at their workstations.  Until we gave them the option of having the tool elsewhere, they chose to just not notice its existence, anymore - it was a fabric of their reality.  The tool had become clutter.  But it was actually a very important tool to have, from time-to-time, when it was needed.  It just wasn't usually needed by that person.

We live this way, often - items, relationships, problems, hopes - they just lie around our space, cluttering our lives.  (If anyone has seen the corner of my room near my bed, you'll know I need to work on this, severely . . . Rachel is in a constant state of noticing it, but I walk right by it far too often).  Every day, we walk by the same people at work, we drive by those on the sides of the street, we step past beautiful flowers or ugly weeds without giving a second thought to their existence.  Even those we notice everyday because we work with them, drop off kids with them, transact with them: they become objects to us, the source of the output of what they are doing.  Do we spend enough time realizing their humanity and noticing who they are?  Do we see the wonder and amazing aspects of our surroundings, or does it just serve to be more clutter?

Today, may it be a day of noticing that which surrounds us.  It may overwhelm. . . as I'm typing this, I'm noticing all the little bits of paper un-filed on my desk and starting to get a little exasperated.  But it's okay, don't worry about the sorting, yet.  Just take it in and allow yourself to incorporate the theme of the yotzer or blessing - Thanks for the constant creation that surrounds us, that we notice by the impact of light.  At each moment, we perceive what we see because new light hits our eyes.  Every second is an opportunity to see newness - but do we take note?

Day 2 Omer-Journaling: 

• Make a list of things or people you noticed today that you do not usually pay attention to (Again, don't have to be comprehensive, but do a nice accounting of what you've seen today, and see if there's anything you did not notice on first glance)

Day 2 Omer Activity: 

• Take one of the objects from the list above that does not belong where it lives, and put it in a new place. 
• Stop to have a personal conversation with a person who has become a bit of an "object" in your life (if you do not have time for this today, it's okay - we'll re-visit this one later. . .)

Today is Day 2 of the Omer

(Here's my journaling so far):

• Papers on my desk that need filing
• Magen David Adom Tzedakah box hidden amongst said files. . . (not doing anyone any good there!)
• My TBO nametag that I could not remember where I had stored it (it's sitting less than six inches from my monitor
• I saw the most incredible tribute from a grandchild towards a grandfather at a funeral today - so touching, personal, and filled-with true knowledge of the person about whom he was talking.
• The aforementioned pile of "stuff" I have in the corner of my bedroom.
• A piece of furniture that Rachel wants to get rid of that is just sitting against a wall
• My Rhea Hirsch School of Jewish Eduation graduation gift that sits on my wall with the following lesson:
• Raba said, "When people are led in for Judgment they are asked: 
• Did you deal faithfully [i.e. with integrity]? 
• Did you fix times for learning? 
• Did you engage in procreation (or the act of raising/educating children)? 
• Did you hope for salvation (or a better situation than we now have)? 
• Did you engage in the dialectics of wisdom? 
• Did you understand one thing from another?

- Babylonian Talmud: Shabbat 31a

• Laila's ears stick out a little bit under all that hair! (Not as much as mine, though)
• I have not followed up with one of my coworkers about a personal thing going on with them that I should have checked-in about.
• And it shall go on from here. . . .