Clean

Author and entrepreneur Tim Ferriss suggest making your bed every morning because if all else goes wrong in the day, you can look back and say you did something right.

In Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, he talks about the importance of putting your house in order. More specifically, he talks about the importance of cleaning up your room.

Peterson strains the importance of the individual who takes on responsibility and moves towards the unknown, turning chaos into order along the way.

It may sound far-fetched to say an unorganized room is chaos; however, how much more in order would our world be if everyone made their bed each day? And it’s beyond “fixing” the world because one person can’t do that. The world is too big, too complex, and transcends one individual. Our small stature doesn’t mean the individual is less significant, but rather the individual’s contribution is best concentrated at the local level, and how much more local can you get than cleaning your bedroom, your kitchen, and your yard.

How many people are parading around the streets fighting for change in the system while they have dirty dishes in the sink?

The current system isn’t perfect, and there is room for change. But it’s much more productive to start within than from the outside.

Impossible goals are a form of hiding. Hiding from what? The things right in front of us.

Your plan to change the world may become a great excuse not to clean up your bedroom.

The saying goes, “Everyone wants to change the world, but nobody wants to help Mom clean the dishes.”

No matter how small or trivial the things in front of you seem on the surface, they have the potential to make you and your environment better.

Before we set out on our grand crusades, let’s first ensure we have ourselves in order and do what we can to help those closest to us.

(This post initially was written for Paths to Peace: 9 Short Ways to a Life of Lower Anxiety but ended up not making the cut. If you liked this post, consider downloading the free eBook now.)