The Value Of Not Doing It Yourself

My wife was looking at the HSN website and sent me a link to their special of the day. It was for a Roomba robotic vacuum. The vacuum itself wasn't very well priced, and had so-so ratings. But the real story here is the fact that my wife was actually open to getting one.

This is big for a couple of reasons. First, it normally takes me about a decade to get her to embrace anything "new". This time, it only took about 3 years for her to actually come around to the idea of a robotic vacuum. The second big stride here is that she and I usually stand on opposite sides of who should be doing our chores.

She's of the camp that we should be doing our own chores. Her reasoning is, "it's our stuff, we should be taking care of it". For her, doing her own chores is a sense of pride that comes with taking care of the things she owns. And, naturally, she thinks I should want to have the same sense of pride and diligence in the upkeep and maintenance of stuff that I own.

I think our desired end results are totally in line, but how we get there is where we diverge greatly.

For me, doing my own chores is a waste of time. She thinks it's because I'm lazy, and she'd be ~partly~ mostly right. But aside from that, I also don't believe in doing my own chores because I don't see the value in doing them. Allow me to explain.

I don't feel I bring myself much value in doing mundane things just to be doing them. I know how to mow a lawn. I know how to sweep a floor, and scrub a toilet bowl. What I don't know is what the last chapter of my book will say until I read it. Or, how to use a new technique in copywriting until I actually learn it and apply it.

Since doing chores doesn't make me money, or enrich my life, I don't care to spend time doing them. As time is my most precious commodity, I really don't like wasting it; as many of my previous posts can attest. I'd much rather pay someone to do my chores, who would do a way better job than I would, so that everybody wins.

The person doing my chores is making a living, and doing their best work (most times), and I get to show my pride of ownership by caring enough to hire an expert to care for my things. Whether it's mowing the lawn, or changing the oil in my car, I'd much prefer to have someone that specializes in doing those things handle it for me.

Do I feel any less proud to have nice neat things that I didn't necessarily clean or maintain myself? Not really. I feel proud that I care enough to take care of my things that they get taken care by someone who wants to, and I get to enjoy the finished result.

Now, if I do want to spend the time to do something myself, I can very much do that. It's not beneath me to do these things. I'm not like that, and I have been humbled many times in my life to where I never forget where I came from.

And there are times that I do my own chores. Perhaps I'd crave the escape, the feeling of putting in the effort to get a desired result. The work in doing chores is very much the same as putting in the effort to learning more about copywriting, or more about how to use Linux, or some other pursuit of knowledge that would require time.

It takes time and energy to get it right.

And let's not forget that the time that's freed up by not having to do chores also frees up time to do other things that can have a bigger impact on our lives. If a relative from out of state calls, I now have time to talk to them and catch up. If someone wants to invite my wife and I to lunch or dinner, guess what? Sure we can go, we've got time!

For me, my time is much better spent learning and doing things that bring joy and fulfillment. I'm sorry, but sweeping and mopping just doesn't do it for me. If my wife gets a kick out of it, more power to her! But, she shouldn't expect me to derive the same satisfaction from doing the chores as she does.

If I were to do that, I'd run the risk of having her think I actually enjoy doing chores, which would mean she could take it easy while I did all the cleaning. Wrong answer. And yet, every time I offer to bring someone in to do the chores so that neither of us has to do them, again starts the argument.

At least this time, I've got the green light to have a robot at least do some of our cleaning. And I'll eventually get all the way there, one win at a time. Patience, Grasshopper.

Image Credit: // Pixabay //