July 10, 2018
Have you ever taken a class and come away feeling totally inspired? Like, today is the day that I am going to change the way I live my life for the better! I think I often come away from classes like that. I consider myself a spiritually growing person and I like to work on improving myself. The problem is always the next day. I come home from a class and retell everything I learned to my husband. Much to my husband’s chagrin, perhaps with a little too much detail and not enough summarizing. It’s just the way my brain works. I state how the class’ message is so simple yet so powerful and of course right on target with my life. I think of how I can implement the different ideas into my everyday. I go to sleep feeling excited for a new dawn.
The next day arrives and I have already forgotten what it was that I was supposed to be changing or improving in my life. Or perhaps I am more realistic in the morning and I realize that it’s not practical to change right now. The day goes on, weeks and months pass and nothing has improved. The inspiration has fizzled down to a blip on my radar that has long since passed.
Recently, I read that your cleaning lady is only as good as you. I have many strengths I believe, and I enjoy doing many domestic tasks, however, cleaning isn’t high on my list. I am grateful for the cleaning lady I have every other week. The off week when she doesn’t come? Well, it’s an opportunity to teach the kids the importance of helping out and belonging to a family unit and preparing for Shabbos Kodesh! I help too of course, but it’s certainly not what the cleaning lady magically does in a few hours. Now rewind to the statement that the cleaning lady is only as good as, well, me! That can’t be right! She does a much better job! I mean, I could do it well too, but I don’t have the time or the energy for the task that she does. But if it is true that she’s only as good as me, where does that leave me?
The following week I began “detailing,” as my cleaning lady likes to call it. Little jobs so I’m not left with a tornado to clean up Erev Shabbos. Small steps. The details. I could do these small things, no biggie. After all, details are how my brain works. I realized at the end of the week when we had to clean for Shabbos and not her, that the house was overall not in terrible disarray. Yes, there was still vacuuming to do and washing the kitchen floor, but the rest of the house was pretty good. If I continue to detail, it will not be a tornado waiting for me to straighten up (so she can clean of course!) before she comes next, and on her off weeks we will get to enjoy a less stressful rush to clean up for Shabbos. The cleaning lady is good at cleaning, but if it only lasts the first hour, what good is that?
Inspiration is great, but if it only lasts until I wake up in the morning, what has it really done for me?
My inspiration is only as good as the steps I take afterwards, the next day, week and month. When I look at house cleaning I see a huge overwhelming mess that takes a tremendous amount of time and effort. When I thought about it in the small little things that I could do just to help what the cleaning lady did last another day or two, it was no longer overwhelming. Afterall, I wasn’t cleaning the whole kitchen or the entire bathroom! I was just “detailing.” Detailing is whole different ball game! This I can do!
Inspiration can feel that way too. It’s too overwhelming to look at an entire area of my life that I want to improve. However, if I look at a few details to work on at first, little steps, these I can do. I am not changing everything. This is not an overhaul, rather a slow progression to betterment.
Long ago, I was taught in Kallah classes that life is in the details. It is in the little things I do for my marriage that keep it strong. It is also, I realize, in the little things that I do to take my inspiration and improve myself with it.
Life can be big and overwhelming. I can’t tackle the whole thing at once, I just like to start with the details.