I didn’t know this when I was younger, but it turns out I care a great deal about how the silverware is sorted and how the dishes are stacked in my kitchen.
It matters to me because I have strong ideas about how our family kitchen should work. I do most of the cooking, so I want to be able to find things easily.
Generally, I like things that work well, where processes have been thought through and there are working systems in place.
I’m not a very tidy person, though. When I was a kid, the floor of my room was always covered in clothes, toys and whatever else I had been doing recently. I prided myself on knowing where everything was, despite the mess. My mental map of my room was a system that worked for me. It still does, but now it’s in my office.
A world that works isn’t about everything being tidy and uniform, like a dystopian movie. People are messy. There’s plenty of room for messiness in the world, as long as the focus is on everyone living a happy and meaningful life.
