Why Bother Tidying Up?

I recently concluded that tidying up is a waste of time.

We spend half of our lives doing it, only to find that we have messed up that one room we meant to keep tidy by the end of the day.

I tidied up the bedroom and the kitchen the other day. I organised my kitchen so I could find everything, and I neatly tidied up the bedroom intending to know where everything was so that I wouldn't have to get a search party out every time I needed to find something I wanted.

Seriously!

Take my advice.

It is a waste of time.

"Make sure all the pans are organised into different sizes, so we can easily find what we want when we want to use it," I told my husband the other day while sorting out the pan cupboard in our kitchen.

"That's a great idea!" he replied.

Or not!

We tidied up the draining board and washed everything up because when everyone had finished eating in our house, you'd think we were feeding a million people, even though there were only me, my husband, our daughter, and our two grandkids.

I often wonder if we are so busy that we miss the reoccurring tornadoes sending everything flying because, by the time everybody has finished at the end of the day, our beautiful, clean and tidy kitchen looks like we have had a storm without witnessing one!

We live in a large house, though the rooms themselves are deceivingly small, so we spend our time writing and studying in the bedroom otherwise, we would end up in the land of chaos trying to work in the lounge when our grandkids are playing.

We know the grandkids have to play, but they certainly know how to use the space in our lounge. We, adults, have decided the only reason we tidy up is so they can have the fun of destroying it again!

My poor daughter spends her time tidying the lounge and the children's bedrooms when they stay with their father.

She does a great job, but as soon as my grandkids walk through the door, I am sure they have secretly planned a mission of destruction because you can't see the floor within minutes of them walking into the house!

I wouldn't change them for the world, though.

After all, even adults can't always be tidy, so how could we expect the kids to do the same?

Humans are crazy!

We spend our time trying to be the best we can. When it comes to tidying and organizing our homes, we spend our time beaming and admiring our cleaning skills. We are oblivious that we are going to make such a mess that we will only end up doing it again.

"Oh, sorry, Aunt Julie, I can't come for coffee today, I am too busy cleaning my house, though I know that I will only end up doing the same tomorrow. Can we arrange the same time next week? That depends on whether I have more cleaning to do."

Yes, humans have been known to cancel leisure over cleaning their homes. Come on, you know you have!

I will put my hand up, and say I have, too!

The point is that we see the word 'spotless,' banded about everywhere we look. We read a magazine, only to find that people's homes are portrayed as squeaky clean, though it is impossible to achieve. We scroll through social media, yet we don't think people might have just cleaned up so well to make their homes spotless and showy for the sake of a media post!

We all have that one friend who appears to manage work and the kids whilst keeping their homes so tidy, that you wouldn't believe that kids live there!

We then go into a battle, believing that we are not good enough because our homes are not like theirs!

But,

Come on, we only get one life!

To hell with Mrs. Perfect I'd rather live my life doing the things I love, rather than spend my life cleaning and tidying all day long.

Won't you join me?

Why bother tidying up?

You're only going to make a mess again!