2006-02-23

To Clean or Not to Clean

I was surprised when I borrowed this book from my local
library!  It is called 'The Cleaning Encyclopedia ' (Believe it or not
it is written by a man.)written by Don Aslett. Now that is not to be
derogatory because I know some men could quite easily be a better
cleaner than a woman as I know there are better men cooks than
women. I believe most people can do pretty well anything if they
put their mind to it whether they are a man or a woman. Some may
take longer than others and many could do a better job than others.
But a person could do most anything if they made an effort.

The trouble is most often we will let others do for us if it is
something we don't like to do. This book tells us before it
starts giving us instruction on how to clean certain things,
the lesson on how we all can make cleaning easier for each
other. Consideration is the big word, putting others before
yourself! This benefits ourselves as much as it benefits others.
As a smart person once said, and this has been repeated by
many other smart people, " If momma is happy than everyone
is happy!"

Who Cleans?

'A lot of research has gone into revealing something we already know --
we're still laboring under the erroneous assumption that the female
is suppose to clean up after everyone.

So about 90 percent of all messes are still made by men and children
and 90 percent get cleaned up by women.  And women still go out of
their way, often, to be gracious and kind and let those who make it
leave it.  When a guest or relative says,"O let me help clean", they say
"O no, you just sit down and enjoy yourself, I'll do it."  And they do it.
And keep on doing it.

Yet as the fast food folks have shown us, it is amazing how little cleaning
is necessary (just whisking up a last few crumbs) when people clean up
after themselves.  It will be the beginning of a new life for you when the
people who are doing most of the messing start cleaning up.  Bad habits
die hard, but put mess makers to work!  Anyone old enough to mess up
is old enough to clean up!

It's never too soon to start teaching that if you got it out or dropped it there,
then you pick it up and put it back.  We, and we alone, are responsible for the
mess we make in the process of living.  When you think about it, what's more
degrading or disrespectful than asking someone else to clean up after you?


A terrible thing happens when we give our children, employees, students, and
fellow citizens the impression that they are not responsible for their mess, that
someone else will retrieve what they leave or toss or dirty up.  This slowly
and surely teaches them that they aren't responsible for their own actions.
Then when people mess up in other, bigger ways (morally, emotionally, or
economically), we as leaders or parents fret and wring our hands and ask "What
did we do wrong?" "Why this? Why us?"  Well, because we took care of their
messes from the time they were two years old to the time they graduated college,
and they don't believe or even know their messes are their own problem.  We shape
our society inside our own homes.  Cleaning, a basic human responsibility, is an
individual responsibility.

Living as if no one were coming behind us to clean up our mess would revolutionize
our homes and our country, especially as every day there is more stuff --- more
packaging, more wrappers, bottles, papers, discards --to be dealt with.  Mother
Nature can't absorb any more trash and litter, and states, towns, and cities can't tax
us enough to do all our cleaning for us.  Who cleans?  We all do, and if you  and I
can help get that idea across (rather than bear it all alone), it will solve more cleaning
 problems than all the chemicals and equipment ever invented to do it.'

Cleaning up the messes we make is not our only responsibility. There are many areas
in our lives that need cleaning! One I would like to address today is our health. How
much responsibility do we take for our health? Do we eat or drink whatever we want
because we think the doctors will look after us if we happen to get sick.Don't you think
it is time to stop and consider what it is we are doing to ourselves when put everything
imagineable into our bodies? Do we ever wonder how much money would be saved in
health care if we all made an effort  to eat healthy. It really isn't that hard with all the
conveniences out there.
  
We say , oh.h.h I really don't have time , I just grab something  fast. Well , what
about in the morning?  Do you not have 15 minutes? If not, couldn't you get up
15 minutes earlier?  Do you have a crockpot? Prepare your food, put it in the
crockpot, turn it on and you are out the door. Wouldn't it be nice to come home
to the yummy smell of supper cooking? There are lots of recipes on the internet if
you don't know what to put together. A bit of meat, or not, some vegetables, a
piece of whole wheat bread and some fruit goes a long way to preserving your health.

If you get tired of the crockpot, make something the night before, then pop it
in the oven or microwave when you are ready to eat. Make up a big batch of
your favorite food and then freeze it in portions. We can do anything if we put
our minds to it. If we start thinking that what we do does affect someone
else somewhere down the line we could all change the world one by one.

Look after yourhealth and leave the health system for those who really need it.
As Alan Aslett says, 'cleaning up after yourself' does affect others but in a
positive way. So stop and think before you act; are you affecting someone
positively?
Patricia Downing