Abby Quillen

Freelance Content Marketing Writer and Editor

Life

Ditch the Life Coach and Do the Daily Chores

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When I quit my job to work at home, I was perplexed by the chores that swelled up to fill my every waking moment. “I can be on my feet every second, never stopping, and still the house is a disaster,” another mom lamented to me.

I nodded.

My boys are gifted at making messes. Recently, when I left the room for thirty seconds, they managed to cover every inch of the living room with a couple of board games — tiny tokens and piles of cards and fake money strewn everywhere.

When I first started at this mothering thing, it was tempting to dream about hiring a housekeeper or paring down our wardrobes to two pairs each or replacing all of the dishes with disposables. But soon I realized that the chores were like any other problem. They needed my attention.

My feelings about the daily chores have transformed remarkably over the years. They’re messy and monotonous and always there like a gnat buzzing around your head. But they are life. And they’re incredible life coaches. You don’t need to trek across the world in search of the meaning of it all or to hire an expensive life coach. You can find all of the answers you need from the dishes and laundry. Here are just a few of the things I’ve learned from the daily chores:

It’s impossible to do anything well if you can’t focus on one thing at a time.

I used to do a few dishes and then wander over to the washing machine and start filling it and then start making a bed and then head back to the dishes for a few minutes and on and on like that all morning long. Then I realized that I felt distracted and frenzied, and nothing at all actually got done.

So I started making a simple checklist. I forced myself to do one thing all the way until the end, crossed it out, and began the next thing. Sometimes this was not easy. Everything in me told me to walk away from the sink. But I stayed. I washed every single dish. I put them away. And then I moved on to laundry. The chores whipped my distracted mind into shape. I probably don’t have to tell you that this focus and discipline transformed my work and every other aspect of my life.

It’s therapeutic to work with your hands.

I like doing the dishes. There, I said it. I do them after every meal and every snack. It’s easier to stay caught up. But in the winter, when the house is cold, I also gravitate toward the warm, sudsy water. Combined with the meditative work of dish washing, it feels, well, healing. My two year old seems to know this. He can spend all day perched at the sink “washing dishes”.

In Lifting Depression, Dr. Kelly Lambert says that when we use our hands and see tangible results from our efforts, our brains are bathed in fell-good chemicals. In this way, all of the daily chores can be as therapeutic as the dishes – making beds, sweeping, folding laundry. We’re using our own two hands to transform our world and make it more beautiful. There’s power in that.

It feels good to do things for other people.

My husband and I used to never fold each other’s laundry. I’d fold and put away my own and the kids’ and leave my husband’s in a basket for him. He said he preferred it that way. Then he got really behind for quite a few weeks, so I folded and put away his laundry for him and discovered something surprising. It made me happy. I felt great to help my husband. He works hard for our family, and here was something I could do to make his life easier.

It probably shouldn’t have surprised me. Helping people makes us happy. A number of studies show that people who give time, money, or support to others are themselves happier and more satisfied. Chores are an act of giving and serving each other. And oh how grateful I am when my husband makes dinner and does countless other chores every day.

Happiness is not something we find, it’s something we make.

There’s no doubt, the chores can be miserable. I’ve spent enough resentment-packed afternoons cleaning the house to know that. But they can also be a lot of fun. When I was a kid, I regularly ate breakfast at my best friend’s house. Her parents made hearty, delicious breakfasts, but what I loved was what happened after breakfast. They turned on music and the entire family cleaned up together. We had a blast talking, singing, dancing and cleaning together, and by the time we left for school, the entire house was spotless. That’s when I realized how magical chores can be. My boys aren’t quite old enough to be real helpers yet. But music or a good podcast are wonderful at transforming the chores into something I look forward to. After all, it’s up to me to make the chores into something that adds to my life.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to life.

Housework may seem innocuous and unassuming, but just beneath it lurks a minefield of gender politics. Many an online forum and a kitchen table have exploded over who should take care of the children and do the housework. And most of us probably carry around scars and baggage from those feuds.

But the chores have to get done. We have to figure out what works, not for politicians or activists, but for us, for our marriages, for our kids, and for our families. And in doing that hard work, the chores can offer us a profound lesson in looking inward and negotiating the sort of lives we want.[clickToTweet tweet=”We can find all the answers we’re searching for from doing the dishes and laundry. #personalgrowth” quote=”We can find all the answers we’re searching for from doing the dishes and laundry. ” theme=”style1″]

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What lessons have you learned from the daily chores? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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Lessons From the Garden

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“Can we plant the pumpkins this day?”

“Let’s go see if the peas are growing!”

“Mom, the chickens are in the garden again.”

Oh yes, those are the sounds of spring around here. It’s our fifth year growing vegetables in our backyard. It’s amazing how much easier it is than that first April, when seven months pregnant, I dragged my husband out to help me dig a garden bed in our brand-new backyard. I wish I’d heeded the wisdom of permaculturists, who recommend observing and analyzing a site for an entire year before planting a single seed … and also the wisdom of my body, which wasn’t happy about my grand gardening visions.

Those are just two of the hard-earned lessons I’ve learned from five years of gardening. Except for one summer of gardening in Colorado several years ago, my husband and I are gardening newbies. My dad planted a vegetable garden for one season when I was a kid, and it was one of the most thrilling summers of my life. I couldn’t wait to go outside every morning to see what was growing. I knew I would be a vegetable gardener someday, and during the many years my husband and I spent renting and moving around, I longed to get my hands in the soil.

I wasn’t a natural.

Those first few years, I labored over my garden plans for hours while studying Steve Solomon’s Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades. I’m thankful for all I’ve learned from that book, and from others. I still refer to books. But even for a word lover like me, gardening is one of those things you learn by doing. And, oh, how I’ve learned.

My first big lesson: I’m not really in charge.

Yes, I can plant at a certain time and mix the fertilizer. I can water or not water. I can fence the chickens away from the first tender sprouts. But I’m collaborating with the weather, the rain, the soil, the wildlife, bugs, insects, and bees. There’s a certain amount of surrender involved.

Over the years I’ve surrendered to stunted squash, wilted cabbage, and unripe tomatoes. To chickens shredding the lettuce, bugs eating the spinach, kids eating the cherry tomatoes.

I’ve learned to let go of perfection.

My next big lesson: gardens have healing powers.

For a couple of seasons, gardening became a chore. Work. I’d trudge out and dutifully plant the seeds and water. I’d mix my fertilizer and mindlessly sprinkle the soil with it.

I believed in growing my own food. I wanted to harvest vegetables from my back yard. But I’m not sure I loved the actual gardening part.

Last spring, overwhelmed with caring for a three-year-old and an infant, I wasn’t sure if I’d plant a garden at all.

“Maybe it’s a good year to let our plots lay fallow,” I announced in March.

But, at the end of April, I got a great deal on a bunch of starts and planted.

Then my dad died.

I spent much of June in Colorado. And when I came back, it was incredibly uplifting to see the peas twisting up their trellises and the lettuce, rainbow chard, spinach, carrots, and heirloom tomatoes crowding their beds, reaching for the sun.

I spent so many hours with those plants over the next few months, watering and weeding, watching and listening, sitting.

I was surprised a few weeks ago when I pulled out my gardening journal. Every season I meticulously record what I plant, what’s growing and what’s not, when I fertilize, etc. Last year, I didn’t jot down a single note after April 29.

And yet, I learned more from gardening than ever before.

The garden is the perfect place to grieve. Quiet, buzzing with bees, bursting with life. The plants have so much to tell us about life and death, about patience, about just being.

Now, as I embark on my fifth growing season, I feel no sense of duty. No obligation. I only feel grateful and excited.

What lessons have you learned from your garden? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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Six Books That Could Change Your Outlook on Life

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Photo credit: austinevan

My husband and I don’t collect many things, but our house is full of books. I love to read fiction, but I tend to collect more practical books, ones that I’ll look at hundreds of times – almanacs,  reference books, plant-identification guides, cookbooks, and how-to guides. My husband’s into the decidedly unpractical – first edition novels.

I spent many years working in libraries and bookstores; I loved being surrounded by books and people who love books. At the last library I worked in, I sometimes wandered the shelves in the afternoons as the sun streamed through the stained glass windows and just gazed up at all the books. Each represents months, years, or decades of brainstorming, writing, revising, editing, and proofreading; it seemed that any of them could alter your life, shift your viewpoint … change everything.

Here are a few of the non-fiction books I’ve found particularly thought-provoking over the years:

1. Material World: A Global Family Portrait by Peter Metzel and Faith DeLusia

A team of photographers traveled the world, got to know 30 different families in 30 different countries, and asked each family to pile all of their possessions in their front yards for a giant photograph. The result is a surprising and unforgettable book. It’s 16 years old now, but I still pick it up all the time, study the photographs, scan the statistics, and read about the different families, and every time I learn something new.

2. Hungry Planet by Peter Metzel and Faith DeLusia

For this volume, Metzel and DeLusia photograph a week’s worth of food bought or grown by 30 different families in 24 different countries. The photographs are accompanied by a detailed listing of the food; a discussion of how the food is raised and used; a variety of family photos; and a treasured family recipe. Like Material World, this is a book I read over and over again.

3. No Contest: the Case Against Competition by Alfie Kohn

Alfie Kohn argues that Americans have a difficult time seeing how competitive our society is, because we’re like fish trying to come to terms with being in water. Kohn cites more than 100 studies showing that competition is not inevitable, that it doesn’t make people perform at their best, that it undermines self-esteem, and that it damages relationships. He also offers ways that we might restructure our lives, classrooms, and society to encourage cooperation instead of competition. It made me take a critical look at the structured competitive activities in my life and my own inner competitiveness, and I came away feeling that both were often keeping me from reaching out, learning, and connecting with others.

4. Slow is Beautiful by Cecile Andrews

Andrews envisions that people can find more fulfilling lives through the “rediscovery of caring community, unhurried leisure, and life-affirming joie de vivre.” I read this book years ago, but I still think about it often. It reminds me to slow down and think of joy, itself, as an important and worthwhile goal.

5. Your Money or Your life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez

Dominguez and Robin encourage readers to think of money as something we trade life energy for. They lay out nine steps for readers to assess their finances and decide how much energy they need to spend earning money, with the goal of achieving financial independence. My family still has a long way to go toward financial independence, but this book and others helped me to think about earning and spending money in an intentional way.

6. Between Parent and Child by Haim G. Ginott

Ginott encourages parents to look at situations from their child’s viewpoint and help him or her vocalize emotions. The book, itself, is a bit repetitive, but I found Ginott’s advice incredibly helpful in communicating with my two-year-old. Tantrums and midnight wakings go infinitely better when I remember Ginott’s advice; it helps me to get to the root of why my son’s upset, help him vocalize his emotions, and reminds me to empathize with him. Ginott’s approach almost invariably calms him down instantly. Amazingly, the book also has helped me to communicate more effectively with my husband. I’ve read heaps of books on communicating and attended various workshops on the subject at past jobs, but this book is the first I’d describe as truly helpful.

What books have you found particularly thought-provoking? Has a book ever changed your outlook on life? I can’t wait to hear your suggestions.