I’m actually on the bandwagon of the anti-clutter movement, and after watching Clean House avidly for the last five years, I really do believe that decluttering your home equates with decluttering your life, if for no other reason than because it forces you to make decisions and gets you used to making those decisions. It is easier for me to stick to an exercise schedule when the living room floor is cleaned and kept Roomba-friendly. I do eat better when I can reach my food choices quickly and easily. I do make more money when my home office workspace is more organized. Since I do have a projected moving date of two years from now, I am seeing this as a challenge to my moving skills – I want this place as pared down and portable as possible by the end of 24 months, including having a lot of loose storage conveniently already boxed, stored, and ready to go. This is not to say I have no clutter: that is to say I have target goals concerning my clutter the way many people do with their diet choices. While I do not expect to ever be really svelte again in my life, I do believe my organization skills can become smooth and sexy with sufficient practice.
Apartment Therapy posits the question, Are We Too Lazy? as an explanation to both clutter problems and the obesity epidemic. To me the answer is painfully obvious, even as I cringe at the sheer US-centric-Protestant-guilt-ethic that the NYC blog brings up: the reason we’re fat is that we’re working too hard, all the time, in jobs that force us to choose between getting flabbier butts by working constantly or by looking less than dedicated if we take time for family, exercise, or basic self-care. When I was working full time in corporate, I repeatedly had to explain to European friends that I could only ever hope to get 10 days off a year; they had a hard time understanding that 10 days is actually pretty generous by US standards. Add that with inactive but highly mental activity – mental exhaustion may not be physical exhaustion, but it is still exhaustion. Given the hours that most people in the US work, and especially for those with families, it can come down to a choice between being with and feeding the family, cleaning, or exercising. Since pay is typically too low to hire any outside help with the cleaning (whether or not children pitch in varies from parent to parent), both the calories and the crud can, will, and do pile up.
So even though there is an element of lazy involved – there’s a lot more elements of guilt and inappropriate obligation to corporate employers screwing up our bodies and our management of our own lifestyles. And even then, it depends on the corporation. There’s a lot of health insurance agencies who want their employees in the workout room or with their families; they know the stats!
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