The Opinions - Why I’m Not Dreading Holiday Chores This Season

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

Holidays often mean more work. Here’s how to view that work differently. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it. My name is Lydia Sown, and I'm a United Methodist minister, writer, and a mom of two soon-to-be-three kids. Before I had kids, I've always been a very efficient person. I'm kind of a high-achiever type, you know, doing really well in my career and my home life and exercising and cooking. and all these things. And then when I had my first child, I was so taken aback by how much less time I had available to do all the things that I normally did. And so that's when I started getting very drawn to these services that promised to help me organize my life better.

You've got a long to-do list. Thankfully, you have DoorDash. Doing my shopping through Instacart saved me so much time and made this cleaning routine. possible. In 2024, my goal is to ditch the delivery apps and cook at home, and Blue Apron makes it so much easier. So we subscribe to Blue Apron and those kind of like cooking companies for a while just to make meal planning easier. We had a cleaner for a little bit. And at the time, I was also kind of knee deep in these authors and self-help podcasters who were also parents like me and growing in their careers who encourage this, like outsource as much as you can, so that you can actually do what you're good at. And so I was kind of in that mindset for a while.

But for my work, it's my job to make sure that I'm always reading a lot of new interesting authors and spiritual authors in particular. And I came across the Wisdom Way of Knowing. It's a book title by Episcopal priest and writer Cynthia Bershau. And in the very first chapter, she describes this spiritual retreat where she was leading participants where they had these breakthrough experiences in their hearts and their souls. And they were following the life rhythm of the Benedictine monastics, which is Oro et Labora. And that's a Latin phrase for pray and work. And sure enough, the Benedictine's soul.

do follow a daily schedule of prayer and work. So I think prayer eight times a day and it's divided with meals and manual labor. And that has always been a part of their life rhythm. And she was talking about how she used this, you know, in the modern day, she uses rhythm with their retreatants and she didn't cut out any of the chores like cooking and cleaning and even like demanding tasks like chopping wood for the community because she saw that labor as an essential part of their spiritual and intellectual development. And that's when it occurred to me that maybe domestic labor and physical labor in general, that there was something intrinsically valuable to it and that it wasn't excessive or extraneous as I had been seeing it for most of my adult life. So I started

reflecting on this idea of labor, physical labor, menial labor, domestic labor, being intrinsically valuable. And I reflected on how it mapped onto my own personal experience. And I started examining the way that I was seeing it. Because before, I was seeing it very mathematically as a zero-sum calculus. If I cook dinner, that means I can't work on my essay. If I vacuum the house, that means I have to sacrifice something else. And then I realized after reflecting that maybe these tasks that I was seeing as so time-consuming, that it was actually a very fertile time for other solutions and brainstorming and creative work to be done. And just that perspective shift has made all of those chores feel so much more important and valuable. We've just begun the holiday season. And

And I know that the holidays can bring a lot of joy for people. And it can also bring about a lot of stress because there's a longer list of tasks that we need to take care of, chores we need to do. But these domestic, menial tasks that most of us try to minimize, avoid, or outsource, have an intrinsic value where we get to experience something sacred while we're engaging in these tasks. And I think what makes this phenomenon so sacred to me is that this empty space that we create in our minds that's actually a very fertile ground for new ideas to come forth, for us to figure out solutions for our lives, for us to find a pathway forward in places of our lives where we feel stuck, that in a sense we're getting help. from the universe or God or spirit speaking to us when we feel like we have not found any way to move forward on our own. My very first book came to me like a lightning bolt when I was walking my daughter in her stroller. Like even thinking of the Christmas presents from my family members, you know, it came to me while I was vacuuming the house. And so as we get ready, for our events or festivities, something that I would encourage all of us to do, no matter how you identify yourself religiously, is to first see labor as a spiritual act where you're connecting

with your heart. It's an act of love for yourself, for your home, for your loved ones. We live in a day and age with so much information and entertainment around us that it's an intentional decision to decide to be bored sometimes when we're doing a task. But when we're bored is when we open ourselves up to spontaneous experiences of wonder and ideas. And I think when we change our view of domestic labor and see it as a gift in and of itself,

we'll find that we'll be much more present to the holiday season. If you like this show, follow it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. This show is produced by Derek Arthur, Sophia Alvarez Boyd, Vichaka, Phoebe Lett, Christina Samuelski,

and Jillian Weinberger. It's edited by Kari Pitkin, Alison Bruzek, and Annie Rose Strasser. Engineering, mixing, and original music by Isaac Jones, Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carol Saburo, and Afim Shapiro. Additional music by Amin Sohota. The fact check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker, and Michelle Harris. Audience Strategy by Shannon Busta, Christina Samuelski, and Adrian Rivera. The executive producer of Times Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Dresser.