Sometimes you come across a book that just begs to be read...especially when it tells you something that you want to hear. Well, I wanted to hear it--I don't know about you...
"A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder", authored by Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman, and published by Little, Brown and Co.
Are You a Slob? Good, You're More Productive
Karen Jackson would be the first to admit her desk looks like a disaster area.
Her stacks of papers and photographs are so sloppy that the Texas schoolteacher won first place in a contest to find America's messiest desk...
[Abrahamson and Freedman's new book] argues neatness is overrated, costs money, wastes time and quashes creativity...
Barry Izsak, head of the National Association of Professional Organizers, disputes the authors' claims, saying they oversimplify and confuse mess with disorganization...
Freedman argues that it is neatness that is expensive.
"People who are really, really neat, between what it takes to be really neat at the office and at home, typically will spend anywhere from an hour to four hours a day just organizing and neatening," he said.
From The Books, a sales site:
Ever since Einstein's study of Brownian Motion, scientists have understood that a little disorder can actually make systems more effective. But most people still shun disorder—or suffer guilt over the mess they can't avoid.
From a personal perspective, most (if not all) of the people I know who suffer from incipient or latent "obsessive-compulsive tendencies" and those with "anal-retentive proclivities" ALSO suffer from a delusional belief in a gawd.
It is only "MY general rule" and is based on friendships and relationships with "neatniks", including my ex-husband. He is German-Lutheran and his father is a neat-freak; and he was further damaged by his parents divorce and his mother remarrying--a career soldier! Poor guy never had a chance... And I (in some mistaken notion that I could have a happy marriage with a man who never threw his clothes on the floor, always put his towels in the hamper and was diligent about the toilet seat) married a mental mess!
There is a bright side to that dark tale: he dragged me to a counselor and told him, "Fix her!" Well, Steve and I fixed ME, the marriage ended, and I was healthier than when I started it. My ex-husband probably still muddles along, wiping down countertops to avoid serious discussion, rearranging his sock&underwear drawer when anxious, and impulsively buying nice presents for his new wife today and suffering "buyers remorse" tomorrow...
Are you in a relationship with an "opposite"? Are you neat--or messy?
(Cross-posted from God is for Suckers!)
9 comments:
so, a neat-freak, a shrink, and a Pharaoh go into a pig sty....
The neat-nick has likely employed
Some teachings of old Dr. Freud.
Said he, to the swine,
"Thy mess is not mine,
Tut! Tut!!" as he tried to avoid.
Sorry, hamilcar--you're so much better at this than I!
Oooohhh! That's fantastic! The "Tut Tut" closer is priceless! If you don't make it in vaudeville, there's a career waiting for you in poetry. ;-)
Why, hamilcar, I blush with pleasure! Thank you! Yeah, vaudeville would be out, even if it wasn't dead.
Rhyming limericks would be a fine tribute to the almost-useless large vocabulary I posses. (How many times can you slip "proclivities" into a conversation?) So far, it's just made filling in crossword puzzles in ink "not suicidal"...
Of course, blogging has made excellent use of it--on GifS, I got an email from a commenter about the Pope-post; she wanted to know if maybe I got it from the "Onion" because she wasn't sure if it was genuine. It wasn't, but I was only channelling the "Onion"--I had written a plausible spoof!
So you have a proclivity for 'proclivity'? It's a pity there's no word for a tendency NOT to do something. The word 'conclivity' is just dying to be invented. :-)
And FWIW, I do my crosswords in ink, too. Its not like I don't make any mistakes, but there's something just wrong about using a pencil.
I grew up watching my father using ink. Using a pencil makes it difficult to read--and it shows a certain lack of confidence in one's vocabulary and/or intellect. You might be able to guess that I suffer from neither defect. Further, humility is not in my makeup.
Why not anticlivity? My excellent dictionary stops at "anticline"; it appears that, like reckless, it is a word with limited flexibility. Or perhaps it is a word that is so little used, it has never begged to be corrupted. A veritable wallflower of a word...
the modern-day connotation of 'humility' is a travesty. Basically, it's "hey look at me! i'm being humble!" True humility will almost always be overlooked. Example : the Amish.
There's nothing wrong with being proud of one's vocabulary and intellect, depsite the fact that we are living under a regime where our leader is proud of his stupidity.
and last but not least, the one advantage of doing crosswords in ink is : you never have to break your concentration to go sharpen the pencil. :-)
Not to quibble, but pens do run out of ink...
Some awe, please, for anticlivity!
And if you're satisfied with this avenue, that's okay. But since we're alone, let me know if you want my email address.
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!
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