I do not like how the media polarizes people. How everyone is lumped into a stereotype. My prime beef with the book The Antidote is that I find it hard to believe every African American acts like the people chronicled in this Reverend’s book.

There’s no room in the media dialogue for differing viewpoints that challenge assumptions and stereotypes about how people act and believe and live. That’s what’s not right in the discourse in American society: if you don’t fit in this or any other box, you’re not written about and not given a say in the media.

I happen to favor Bernie Sanders if you must know. I think healthcare is a right not like Ted Cruz who says it’s a choice.

Try as I might to see how the right wing faction of our government makes sense (and how Conservative Christians make sense) I have a hard time buying what they’re selling.

I’ve been branded a liberal because I speak out in favor of open-mindedness. I was interviewed at Yahoo for an article on dating when you have a mental illness. I was positive and proactive in my quotes. Yet the majority of people who posted comments below the article stigmatized those of us with a diagnosis who just wanted to be loved and love others like everyone else.

I’ve always made the case for treating others with dignity. A friend who was a CEO–even he knew the trickle-down theory doesn’t work in practice. On the face of it evangelical arguments seem plausible yet when you analyze them they don’t make sense. Like Jeanine Pirro claiming on Sirius XM radio that because of waterboarding we’re keeping America safe. Months later there was a terrorist attack in San Bernardino.

Star Jones was quoted that if you don’t stand for something you’ll fall for anything. I stand for giving every human being dignity. I stand for stopping these endless no-good wars. I stand for booting out stigma of any kind including racism and homophobia regardless of who’s doing it.

Now that it’s voting season in America I’m a voracious reader of the political news. I’m fascinated with the demographics of the people interviewed in exit polls.

This all leads me to think I’m right in claiming our government can’t fix what ails American society. People are disenfranchised. For decades we’ve been unable to influence the fate of Acts that become Laws.

Who knows: maybe now is the time for more of us to get involved like my political activist guy. I’ve changed my mind: we need to get active in speaking out even though at the end of the day it might not matter who gets elected.

Yet it does matter to me when Republicans co-opt Christianity as a political ploy and blunder what Love Thy Neighbor means.

Only now I feel it’s imperative more than ever that everyone uses our voices to talk about the things that matter to us.

I’ve written my congressperson and senators about the mental health Acts that should be voted into Law. In this way it’s true we’ve had to wrestle the government to the mat to do the right thing.

The right of everyone living in America to recover–the chance to have a full and robust life when you’re diagnosed with a mental illness–that’s what matters to me the most.

I say this because without mental health what does a person really have?

It might just be time to get involved as citizen activists.

The first article I had published in a newspaper was titled Time to Spring Clean in January, 1990 in the Staten Island Advance.

It recommended doing spring cleaning now to beat the winter blues and blahs. The article talked about how the cobwebs of our minds and residual negative thoughts need to be cleaned out too.

More than this I recommend not accumulating clutter in cabinets and drawers and closets and on the visible surfaces in your apartment or house. I have not ever understood the attraction to displaying knickknacks on every inch of a coffee table or end table or dresser or elsewhere in a home.

Clearing out the old, the unwanted, the things that bring back painful memories should be done at the start of every season if you ask me. If you’re not currently using an item or won’t resume using it in the next season, you shouldn’t keep it on a closet shelf or anywhere in your apartment.

I make an exception for things you do love and do use not often yet every so often. Yet if something is broken, torn or otherwise unusable it shouldn’t be kept at all.

With clothes I’ve always recommended keeping on hand only the items that fit and flatter us. Go out and buy new clothes if you gain or lose weight. I kid you not I had to replace every pair of pants and all my skirts when I lost weight. This was no joke yet I did it rather than walk around in baggy clothes.

Living in our homes should be a celebration of our lives that we take joy in. Not a museum stuffed with artifacts or items from the past or shabby furniture. It’s true that the Salvation Army, Housing Works in New York City, and Goodwill all sell decent secondhand furniture if you can’t afford Raymour & Flanigan or Ashley Home Store.

Spring will return in two months. I say: start now to clean up and clear out and to think about the goals you want to achieve. Have a goal instead of setting a resolution.

Spring is the perfect time to start something new.

I find that clearing out an apartment and cleaning up in the winter is often the prelude to making other positive changes in our lives.

Try it: clear out and clean up and see if something magical happens.

I was tasked with cleaning out an office. It was like I was an expert called on to intervene on an episode of Hoarders. I kid you not a neat freak wrangled nearly a decade of clutter.

Living in and living with a mess is no way to live. Most of all I think having a cluttered apartment can affect a person’s mental health.

I recommend reading the Marie Kondo book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Like this Japanese clutter-control expert with a mile long waiting list and no clients that ever rebound: doing it all at once is something to consider. Kondo’s method  seems perfect to me.

It’s a way to live life Left of the Dial when your home is NOT a mess, is NOT cluttered and chaotic. Often: to live in hope and harmony the first step is to clear the clutter to make room for the new and better.

My mantra is: for every one thing you bring into your apartment one old thing has to be removed. I’ve had this ethic for over a decade now.

The absolute best and truly effective tidying method is a variant on Marie Kondo’s method. I’ll tell you how I found out how to do this via a Google search.

Place the sweater face down on the bed. Fold the left sleeve across the back and then fold the right sleeve across the back. Fold the hem up from the bottom about 1/3 up. Keeping rolling the hem another third or so up until you have a sweater like a loose jelly roll. (You might have to fold it in quarters.)

Store the sweaters in rolls sideways across the length of the drawer.

Voila: you can store more sweaters in less space.

Best of all when you’re able to easily see them to take out one sweater the sweater will not be wrinkled after you take it out. If it’s lightly wrinkled you can use a steamer to get the wrinkles out.

I’m all for making our lives simpler.

Why have to use up tons of storage space and drawers for sweaters that can compactly now fit into one drawer instead of two or three? Why have to struggle and take time to remove all the sweaters on the top to get to the one on the bottom?

Perfetto if you ask me.

Time moves on. One day our loved ones will not be here. Cleaning up and cleaning out should not only be done after a person is gone. We should do it while we’re alive so that we don’t saddle other people with cleaning up our messes in the event we’re not here.

Yet most of all we should be neat and tidy for ourselves: to have a clear mind and a fitter body and stop from being overwhelmed with the choices we have to make or want to make.

Neat is sweet.