Washing the Dishes

The perfect version of you all starts with washing the dishes.

Apparently. My mother, aunt and middle brother having been telling me this for more than 30 years. In a similar vein, Gretchen Rubin told me to make my bed. This weekend I read another 'one sitting book'* called The War of Art: Winning the inner creative battle, which seemed a drug free version of the movie Limitless. Both start with the protagonist washing the dishes.

The point isn't clean dishes. The point is getting beyond inertia. There are much bigger battles we all want to win to move closer to what we want to achieve. In The War of Art, Pressfield says:

"There's a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don't, and the secret is this: It's not the writing part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write."

later he adds a quote by W.H.Murray:

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it. Begin it now."

Now whether these inspirational movies and books can get me to paint regularly, write more, read more, communicate better, be fitter, eat healthier, and love deeper... I don't know.

But... my dishes are clean.

* These are great. The other two I have read which I can recommend are 'Poke the Box' by Seth Godin, and 'The Great Stagnation' by Tyler Cowen. The idea is that most books have a core idea, but then often retell this idea in a variety of ways and add some fluff. 'One sitting books' are like long essays you can read in 2 hours and get straight to the heart of the issue.