Change Your Closet, Change Your Life: Gillian Dunn (Transcript)

Here is the full text of registered nurse Gillian Dunn’s talk titled “Change Your Closet, Change Your Life” at TEDxWhiteRock conference.

Best Quote from this talk:

“No, because you know the present on the inside is even better than the wrapping. I think life gives us a present and it’s called today and we hold back from unwrapping it and we give ourselves excuses and make it feel okay. But really what’s on the inside is what matters.”

Listen to the MP3 Audio:  Change Your Closet, Change Your Life by Gillian Dunn at TEDxWhiteRock

TRANSCRIPT:

I believe there are two types of people in the world. Those that sing in the shower and those that perform in the shower. And I am a performer.

I don’t know what it is about that small space with the water running. My shampoo bottle is my microphone and my loofah singing backup, all I know is when I’m done, I want to start touring instead of toweling.

Now after the shower is out of the way comes the really important part: choosing what to wear.

I stand in front of my closet, bursting at the seams and I still have the thought: I have nothing to wear.

Now usually this decision is made a little bit easier for me, because I work as a registered nurse and we wear scrubs to work. With the big bold blocks of colors that scrubs are, sometimes the decision feels more like what giant Crayola crayon do I want to be today.

The closet is just one of the areas in which our stuff overwhelms us. We wear 20% of our clothing 80% of the time. We live in a time where with the click of a button, you can order something online and have it arrived at your doorstep without even leaving the couch.

Abundance is the name and spending is the game. We have no problem with gathering stuff but we have a problem with using it. And that’s why I’m here today.

At this point you get to join me. I’m going to invite everybody to raise one hand. I won’t make you do anything crazy like those guys.

I’m going to ask a series of questions. If you answer yes to any of the questions, I’m going to invite you to lower your hand.

Do you have clothes in your closet with tags on? Do you have clothes in your closet you haven’t worn in a year? Do you have a candle in your house that has never been lit? Do you have special alcohol that you’re saving for a special occasion? Do you drive a luxury vehicle that spends more time in the garage than out on the open road?

Finally, do you have dinnerware or China that you save for a special location or guests? If you find your hands back in your lap, you’ve earned yourself 10 more minutes of listening to me.

I returned from a family vacation in Mexico, and I bought myself a beautiful blue ornate candle. I was so excited to light it. I returned home and I thought: Today is not the day. I’m going to save it for the right occasion. So I tucked it in my closet and I forgot about it.

Two years passed and I remembered my candle. And I thought: Today is the day. I’m going to light it. So I pulled out my candle and I opened the box and my beautiful blue candle had turned into a big puddle of wax. My candle had melted.

Now what struck me that’s really strange about this was that my candle had done exactly what it’s designed to do. It’s designed to melt but it had done it without me.