My Dishwater Philosophy

I'm not one to make new year's resolutions. They're not effective for me. A year is too long. I prefer to make my changes as they strike me. I test them for a period of time; 3 weeks to a month usually. I tweak them. I achieve them. I also have ditched them. For me, my life is about change, flexibility and freedom. I use what works, change what doesn't.

Stumbling on a year-long resolution 3 or 4 months into it means stress, guilt and self-flagellation. That's not the most conducive road to achievement for me.

Besides this, my philosophy on this subject was made clearer to me in my kitchen sink.

I was doing dishes at the sink one day. The kids were gone, the house was quiet. I had nowhere to be, no particular responsibility to respond to at the time so as I puttered, I gazed out the window over the sink, just musing over life.

I looked into the sink, thinking water is a metaphor for life. Without water, there is no life.

I swirled my hands around in the warmth and suds, moving the water around with slow, gentle motions.

Then I slowly squeezed my hands into tight fists, lifted them, opened them then studied my wrinkly palms and fingertips.

I swirled my hands in the water again. I was thinking.

I plunged my hands into the sudsy water, cupped each hand softly, brought the pinky edges together under the water and lifted them up. My hands came up filled with so much MORE than water. The bubbles made peaks twice as high as my cupped hands and they shone. I could see prisms on the arcs of most of them.


I brought my hands a bit closer to my face. I studied the way the bubbles were built on one another, the ones on the bottom supporting the upper ones. I noted that each one was clear but that as a whole they appeared white. The deeper I looked, the more I saw.


I sniffed. Yum. Green apple.

I finished up those dishes, thinking that a sink full of sudsy dishwater is so like life.

The harder I fight and grasp over-zealously, frustratingly at whatever I might want in life, the quicker it escapes my grasp. This is what I've found to be true in my life.

When I trust gently and deeply that I will have what I want and poise myself with open arms to catch and scoop up the bounty of life, I get so much more than I bargained for or even believed that I could manage. It is this way with the amount of water that can fit inside a fist compared to the amount that can be collected with a cupped hand.


The deeper I appreciate all that's abundant in my life, the more depth of beauty I recognize in even the smallest blessings given to me. Just as when I looked deeply into the small cloud of dishwater bubbles.


A key item for me...the more I appreciate all the things that fill my cupped hands, it seems the bigger my hands get, able to hold more and more.


As is the way with dishwater, I realize sometimes there will be a small piece of grungy lettuce leaf or something in with the water and suds. It's to be expected. The same applies to life.


Abundance isn't necessarily perfection. I expect a bit of bad with the good. I find the most effective way handle these bumps in life is to just deal with it. It's to be expected. I do my best not to be upset over it. I try to deal with it in the same way that I wouldn't be upset over seeing a bit of wilty lettuce in the dishwater. I find it best to take care of it and move right along.

This is the way I plan for this year to be my best yet!