Disorganization

I have been disorganized and messy all my life. It's something that has challenged and tortured me in every aspect of my life. As a kid my room was always a mess, as an adult my apartments have always had various piles or clutter and have been in various states of ridiculous messiness. Why am I like this? How do I fix this?

It seems that no matter how much stuff I throw away, it multiplies ten fold before my eyes. Books and photos and Playbills and DVDs and ... ugh! STUFF. George Carlin has a great comedy bit about "stuff" that I'm sure you can find with a quick google search. Why do we need so much stuff?

Every once and awhile a television show like Oprah or something does an hour where they take a cluttered apartment, bring in a self-described expert and they clean up the place. Then they'll do a catch-up show to see if the people kept it up and they have. And they thank Oprah (or whoever) for saving them from their STUFF.

Now I have to add - usually the people that amke it to TV out of desperation have house where stacks of newspapers are piled to the ceiling and they've formed little walkways between rows of clutter to get from room to room. We aren't like that. I think we are actually run-of-the-mill with our messiness.

But it is driving me crazy! Advice anyone?