Confessions of an Angry Cleaner

I used to be what you might call an "angry cleaner". Especially when cleaning other people’s messes and clutter. I’ve seen some pretty funny and relatable things others have written about this, so I know I’m not alone.

But my angry cleaner phase is largely over. It took years of soul-searching to realize my own complicity in the messes around the house. It’s true that I’m not making them with my own hands, but I am still part of the household that produces them. It’s all very holistic squishy system stuff that can be very difficult to understand…​ When I had a vested interest in not understanding it!

The One Weird Trick was to stop trying to avoid being responsible and, in fact, take the concept of "responsibility" out of the equation entirely.

It’s one of those cases where I was both right and wrong at the same time. Factually, everything I was thinking was true. But in the grand scheme of things, I was wrong. I’ve largely flipped my thinking without changing a single fact.