It’s 5 p.m. on a Friday, and you’ve just checked into a nice hotel. When you enter your room, it is pristine. Everything has been neatly prepared for your weekend stay. (I’m referring only to the visual appearance of the hotel room, of course. At the microscopic level, it’s best not to contemplate how many people have slept in that bed over the years or the fact the hotel NEVER launders the bed spread. If you dwell too much on bacteria levels and dust mite colonies lurking there, you’d probably insist on sleeping in the bathtub.)
Within minutes of entering the neat hotel room, you toss your coat onto a chair, kick your shoes off into the corner, and hoist your suitcase onto the bed and begin to empty it. You have begun the process of slowly but surely disheveling the room.
Fast forward to Sunday at 10 a.m. You enter your hotel room after a leisurely four or five trips to the breakfast buffet table during the previous two hours. Suddenly, it hits you: check-out time is in one hour. You’ve got to repack all those scattered clothes and the 47 health and beauty products piled up around the bathroom sink. It’s a daunting task.
After years of observing this hotel room phenomenon, along with many other aspects of everyday life, the only conclusion we can make is this: the natural state of human beings is clutter.
Whatever environment we enter, it’s easy and inevitable that we will create clutter. It’s our natural instinct. And resisting or eliminating clutter requires Herculean effort.
This came to mind recently when my good friend Mickey Blarney and his wife put their house up for sale. If you’ve ever gone through that, um, delightful exercise, you know that real estate professionals absolutely abhor the concept of clutter. “If you want someone to make an offer, you HAVE to get rid of the clutter!” is the final phrase of the Real Estate Agent Oath.
After years of observing this hotel room phenomenon, along with many other aspects of everyday life, the only conclusion we can make is this: the natural state of human beings is clutter.
Whatever environment we enter, it’s easy and inevitable that we will create clutter. It’s our natural instinct. And resisting or eliminating clutter requires Herculean effort.
This came to mind recently when my good friend Mickey Blarney and his wife put their house up for sale. If you’ve ever gone through that, um, delightful exercise, you know that real estate professionals absolutely abhor the concept of clutter. “If you want someone to make an offer, you HAVE to get rid of the clutter!” is the final phrase of the Real Estate Agent Oath.
Getting rid of the clutter is very difficult, especially if you’re still living in the house. Mickey suspects his real estate agent wanted them to put everything they own into storage and then move to a hotel for three weeks. They might have done that, but unfortunately Mrs. Blarney spent time dwelling on bacteria levels and dust mite colonies.
The Blarneys did get their house reasonably presentable. They threw away a lot of stuff and then hid much of the clutter in the attic, under the beds, in the back of closets, and in the vegetable drawers of the refrigerator. (“Hey hon, have you seen my phone charger?” “It’s next to the cucumbers.”)
The most difficult part of selling their house was the two-week period when real estate agents brought prospective buyers over to view the place. Every morning before leaving for work Mickey and his wife had to get the house in pristine de-cluttered condition.
When they came home each evening, their natural clutterizing instincts took over. Shoes left over there; coat on the arm of the couch; newspaper here; couple of glasses in the sink; phone charger on the end table. All these little, seemingly meaningless things added up to one big honking case of clutter. They had to clean it all up and hide everything every single morning. It was brutal. And they couldn’t just put a ten dollar bill next to the TV and let the housekeeping staff return everything to pristine condition.
The Blarneys did get their house reasonably presentable. They threw away a lot of stuff and then hid much of the clutter in the attic, under the beds, in the back of closets, and in the vegetable drawers of the refrigerator. (“Hey hon, have you seen my phone charger?” “It’s next to the cucumbers.”)
The most difficult part of selling their house was the two-week period when real estate agents brought prospective buyers over to view the place. Every morning before leaving for work Mickey and his wife had to get the house in pristine de-cluttered condition.
When they came home each evening, their natural clutterizing instincts took over. Shoes left over there; coat on the arm of the couch; newspaper here; couple of glasses in the sink; phone charger on the end table. All these little, seemingly meaningless things added up to one big honking case of clutter. They had to clean it all up and hide everything every single morning. It was brutal. And they couldn’t just put a ten dollar bill next to the TV and let the housekeeping staff return everything to pristine condition.
The good news is the Blarneys finally sold their house, and then spent an entire weekend moving into their new place. They cluttered it good, and then didn’t lift a finger to tidy up. Mickey tells me it was a great feeling. Mankind in his natural state.
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