Embracing your inner slob
I am not a naturally neat person. If I could avoid cleaning and
tidying up, I would. My dream of all dreams
– such as winning the Lotto – is to become rich enough to afford
a live-in maid.
But since that’s not likely to happen, it’s just me.
Embracing your inner slob
I am not a naturally neat person. If I could avoid cleaning and tidying up, I would. My dream of all dreams – such as winning the Lotto – is to become rich enough to afford a live-in maid.
But since that’s not likely to happen, it’s just me.
My mother is very precise and orderly. She doesn’t understand why anyone would not want to pick up that stray sock or wash that pesky window. I, on the other hand, can go for weeks without such things even registering on my radar.
As you can imagine, we didn’t get along too well when I was living at home. I was content to live in a room with so much clutter it was difficult to find the bed. I went off to college and lived the same way, except Mom wasn’t nagging me to clean up.
I got married, and nothing much changed. Then I had kids, and things got really messy. But at least then I had an excuse.
When they got older, I decided to reform. Living in squalor is only fun for a little while, and then it gets boring.
These days, I try my best to be clean and tidy. It’s a struggle. The past few years, I’ve made a conscious effort to be organized. I file papers in the filing cabinet. I’ve cut down on my junk mail. I don’t stack up piles of paper in the corners like I used to.
I became a closet watcher of TV shows such as “Clean Sweep” and “Home Made Simple.” I read Martha Stewart’s magazine for inspiration. I’ve de-cluttered, disposed of excess stuff, curbed my habit of bringing home things I don’t need – no more garage sales for me – and generally cleared out the garbage.
I was feeling very proud of myself for this until I saw this article in Time magazine: “Messy is the New Neat.”
Everything I’d been doing was trashed by this article, which opened with the sentence, “Neatness is overrated.”
Sparking the article is the publication of a new book, “A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder,” by Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman, who write that America’s obsession with order is draining the joy from our lives.
We spend so much time trying to be clean and organized it takes us away from things that really matter, such as our families or creative endeavors. And being orderly might actually be counterproductive. If something is filed away, you tend to forget all about it, even if it was important.
Embrace the clutter, say the authors. Don’t worry, be messy.
Well, you can imagine how that motto has made me feel.
On one hand, I was thinking, “Wow! My inner messiness was right all along!” On the other, I griped to myself, “I’ve just wasted all this time de-cluttering, and for what?”
This was a valid question, considering I had just spent the better part of a weekend removing a piece of furniture from my bedroom, and then rearranging the bedroom suitably. Oh, and getting rid of stuff.
I shook my fist at the heavens: “Darn you to heck, Martha Stewart! You’ve led me down the wrong flippin’ path!”
As I got no reply, I assume that in the future, I can go forth and be messy. Without guilt.
