The Holy Grail of Being Organised

Ah yes, being organised, being on top of things, being efficient, being really together. Like most people I have been chasing the Holy Grail of Being Organised for some good long time now and I'm no nearer now than I was when I started. Actually that's not strictly true . . . . I have put in place lots of good working practises ( that just sounds so good doesn't it "working practises" ). But still the Ultimate Goal eludes me. I am told by others that I'm good at organisation so I tend to think I'm not being organised enough and work that much harder at it. No, still not any nearer. My husband says that in school their teacher used to tell them to work harder and they would all grip their pencils tighter which I love because that's exactly what we all tend to do.

So where does it all go wrong? Well, I'm thinking the Holy Grail is a metaphor and those who went high tailing it off round the landscape thinking they'd find something real came a cropper one way or another, pure heart or no pure heart. Being Organised is a myth. It's not a destination which is how we tend to regard it. The key to finding the Holy Grail was to ask the right question and for that you don't actually have to go anywhere. What is the Right Question I hear you ask? The wonderful, lovely, elegant nature of this is that the right question is different for everybody. What is the right question for you, that's where it's really at (man). I'm a bit rusty on this these days but I believe the question was "why do you seek the Holy Grail?" ( and sadly not "what is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?", cos you could find that on Google). Yes, why do we seek the Holy Grail? You've got to love it, both general and personal at the same time. The answer to that of course depends on what The Grail means to you. And so on and so forth. Now you know why mystics went off to Be Alone in some wilderness or other . . . because this stuff just makes your head hurt. (oops, shades of Life of Brian creeping in . . . " How shall we f**k off, Oh Lord?")

I can feel myself rambling here . . . . grip your pencil tighter Whitney . . . . my point is, why are we giving ourselves such a hard time? The real stumbling block to the Nirvana of Perfect Organisation is Life . . . and, sliding off into a kind of a Bhuddist sidetrack here, isn't Life the stumbling block to any kind of Nirvana? Ha! ha! ha! Life happens and gets in the way and is messy and troublesome and hard to pin down and f****d up and crazy though it is also those very qualities that make it worthwhile. It's mostly like trying to play Dodgeball I guess and the best we can do is just do the best we can. (I'm thinking of doing a book of Whitney's Aphorisms, like Marcus Aurelius's Meditations but not so good. ) So, I think that my question for myself right now has to be "Why am I chasing that particular Holy Grail?" And maybe my personal Holy Grail should just be to be realistic and stop giving myself a hard time.

My love and thanks to Sharmon whose e-mails on the subject of missed deadlines made me realise just how crazy I was getting about this whole thing.

My love and thanks also to Monty Python for making life so much better and funnier.