Convenience
Daily Meditation 459–5/30/2023
Are you like me where you think to yourself:
I’m just going to brush my teeth again, later, so I’ll leave the toothpaste on the counter.
I’m just going back out in 2 hours, so I’m going to leave my wallet and keys on the counter.
I’m just going back to bed tonight, so why bother making it.
Admittedly, I’m not always so bad about these “obvious conveniences,” but it can be tempting to have the “I’m just gonna do X again in Y amount of time” attitude.
But it leads to creating a chaotic and slovenly environment for yourself.
Slowly the books you’re reading, the razor and toothpaste and brush you’re using, the blankets and sheets, the shirt(s) you wore only 2 hours each, and so on grow into a maelstrom of malcontent for yourself.
Living in stacks, messes and chaos like this breeds the “simmering anxiety” we talk about here in YouDaimonia. This is the anxiety you can control and should control.
You don’t need to clean to the most anal, OCD level every day and put a book back every time you move the bookmark, but you can endeavor to chip away at your stacks of stress to recreate your environment.
Turn those “I’m just gonna…” conveniences into “I’m going to keep it tidy, it just takes 2 seconds.”
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These are distillations from my coming book “YouDaimonia: the Ancient Philosophy of Human Flourishing.”
