Existential Dishwashing: Finding Meaning in the Mundane

A 2014 study found that mindfully washing dishes—you know, focusing on the smell of the soap, the temperature of the water—can decrease nervousness by 27 percent and increase inspiration by 25 percent. Increase inspiration? From washing dishes? I feel like my main inspiration is just to be done with them so I can sit down. Right? But it got me thinking. After we talked last week about the radical, almost terrifying freedom of choosing an outfit with Sartre, I started wondering about the opposite. What about the things we absolutely have to do? The things that aren't a choice at all. Like the pile of plates staring at you from the sink.

Exactly. So I was standing there the other night, looking at this... this archaeological dig in my kitchen. And my first reaction is always that internal sigh. This feeling of, ugh, this again. It’s a burden. The great, unending cycle. They get clean, they get dirty, they get clean again. It’s Sisyphean. It totally IS. But then I tried to, uh, shift it. I started thinking about the Stoics. Specifically Epictetus and this idea of the dichotomy of control. Okay, break that down for me. What does that look like at the kitchen sink? Well, the dishes are dirty. That's a fact of the world. I can't control that dinner happened.

What I can control, the only thing I can control, is my response. I can wash them resentfully, splashing water everywhere, thinking about the ten other things I'd rather be doing. Or... I can just wash the dishes. You can choose to be present for it. Exactly. I can't control the existence of the chore, but I have absolute authority over the quality of my attention while doing it. So I picked up the first plate. It's got, you know, dried-on pasta sauce. The classic enemy. The worst. And instead of just scrubbing furiously, I just… let the hot water run over it. I focused on the feeling of the ceramic under my fingers, the sound of the water, the way the soap started to foam.

I wasn't trying to achieve some higher state of zen. I was just doing the task that was right in front of me. But what about that cycle you mentioned? The Sisyphean part. Even if you do it mindfully, you know you're just going to be back in the exact same spot tomorrow. Doesn't that make it feel... ultimately pointless? See, that’s the turn. That’s where it gets powerful. I think for an existentialist like Camus, Sisyphus is a hero because he scorns his fate. He's happy in his rebellion against the absurdity. But for a Stoic... the point isn't the rock. The point is how you push it. Huh. The virtue isn't in getting the rock to the top of the hill.

The virtue is in the pushing itself. Doing your duty with discipline, and patience, and without complaint. The reward isn't the clean kitchen. The reward is the character you're building while you're standing there. Yes! The clean kitchen is just a temporary, almost incidental, byproduct. The real work is internal. That... that reframes a LOT of things. Not just dishes. Answering that email you've been avoiding. Sitting in traffic. Any task that feels like an obstacle to the "real" part of your day. Right. What if those aren't obstacles? What if they are the real part of the day? The Stoics would say that's your arena.

That's your gymnasium for the soul. You don't get stronger by lifting imaginary weights. You get stronger by lifting the weights that are actually there. The dirty dishes, the boring meeting, the delayed train. So it's not about finding a life where you don't have to do the dishes. It’s about becoming the kind of person who can wash them well. Mm-hm. It's about accepting what is. Not with passive resignation, but with a kind of active embrace. The water is hot, the soap is slick, the plate will be clean. And then it will be dirty again. And I will be here to wash it. There's a... a steadiness in that.

A kind of peace. So, is the next existential crisis going to be about taking out the trash? Who knows. Maybe the whole point is just learning to see the profound in the mundane, one chore at a time.