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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   4354 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for November 16, 2022

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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Tidiness is practically immutable beyond a certain age. Your roommates are messier that you are. This likely doesn't bother then. In fact, without you they would be living in filth and fine with it.

I don't think any system of chores and keeping track will do anything except to alienate your roommates. Maybe they will grudgingly do a few extra chores, but it won't solve the root issue: they are not tidy and you are. No system is going to fix this. Notice how everyone here is just spitballing solutions without giving examples of how it worked for them. It doesn't work and will worsen the relationship with your roommates.

So... while we're spitballing, here's my proposed solution. Fix the problem with money. Hire a housekeeper to come in once a week and clean.

Second best solution: Overcome your natural tidiness and just embrace the filth.

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