Around my house, swim meet season takes its toll in predictable ways. Clean laundry sits unsorted in baskets a little longer. Stacks of my kids’ artwork grow taller between sorting. Junk mail piles up. Then my wife and I invite another family over for dinner. These are people with young kids like ours and they expect a degree of clutter. Nevertheless, we still clean up. It’s what you do.

Once our friends depart and our kids are in bed, I look around the house and soak in the residual tidiness. There is more floor space with the laundry put away. Flat, clean surfaces wait devoid of junk mail that has now been recycled (or hidden). I have a palpable sense I am more at ease.