CLEARING THE KITCHEN COUNTERS

I used to have a lot of stuff on my kitchen counter - a canister of coffee, the coffee machine, more than a dozen knives held in a wood block, a small bowl for spare change, a roll of paper towels, and odds and ends that were meant to be temporary but somehow never moved. Sometimes, I had trouble clearing enough space to do whatever it is you usually do on kitchen counters but I hardly noticed the inconvenience. It simply didn't occur to me that things could be different.  
     Last week, I made a change. I moved the bowl of change onto a shelf outside the kitchen, found a place in one of the cupboards to store the block of knives, cleared off the odds and ends. That left the coffee canister and maker and the standing roll of paper towels. Now, when I walk into the kitchen I'm amazed at all the space. I could cater a five course meal without a problem at all.
     What took me so long? Why was I so able to ignore the inconvenience? Why didn't occur to me to make things easier for myself? I have some idea of the answers - these are questions I've asked myself many times before over different problematic areas of my life.  
     It turns out I have a high tolerance for inconvenience. I can step over a pile of papers on the floor for days instead of picking it up and finding a place for it. I can put off depositing checks in the bank despite knowing my account is running low. I can sit with the pain of isolation without making a move to connect with friends and go out. Then one day something shifts inside and I pick up the papers, get the checks in the bank, call up a friend and make a plan for dinner. 
     Full frontal attacks on whatever the problem is don't seem to get me moving. I wish they did, but there's a perverse resistance in me and it's that I have to work through. "There's a problem, why don't I deal with it, I have to deal with it, I don't want to deal with it." That litany goes round and round in me... until "one day something shifts." I didn't decide to clear off the kitchen counter - instead, I just found myself doing it. Clearly, the time had come.
     In the face of change, there's a pushme-pullyou inside me and as long as the conflict, the ambivalence lasts I can't force myself to act. I need to chip off little pieces, sometimes tiny pieces of my resistance, until, like Michelangelo's statues emerging from the stone, right action emerges from me. Why can't I hurry it along? I don't know, maybe I'll never know, but in any case, I've learned not to ask this particular why. After all, I know from experience: it just takes what it takes.