HOUSECLEANING BY MOONLIGHT

Heloise's Kitchen Hints, originally uploaded by Paula Wirth.

I've been thinking a lot about M. Scott Peck lately--you know, the guy who wrote THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED. If you troll the obits, looking for stories like I do, you know he died recently from pancreatic cancer. Only in his sixties, too. I remember when I thought that sixty was practically senescent, but the older I get, the younger those people in the obits seem.

Anyway, after reading the paper, and thinking a little about the man, and how he managed to write a book about self-discipline that stayed on the best seller list for years, I took out my old copy and thumbed through it. Never did finish the thing. In fact, my bookmark is still wedged in page 34.

However, there are a couple of lines that stayed with me all the years since I jammed that book in the shelf and abandoned it.

The first was the opening line of the book: Life is difficult.

I was probably in my twenties then, and I still didn't know that. Really? I thought. But then, I quickly figured that applied to other people. Old people like M. Scott Peck and my parents and the mailman who was always frowning when he came up the walkway. People who, if they weren't careful, might find themselves in the obit page. Not a young woman whose biggest problem is trying to avoid the unwanted guy who's been calling eleven times a day.

Anyway, as time went by, and I found myself running into various obstacles, I found myself returning to that one declarative sentence that had been imprinted on my mind. Life is difficult. It explained a lot of things, and if you accepted that premise, it kept you from
making it even more so with false expectations.

The second line that stuck with me was one I've quoted to my children often, and to my lazy co-workers whenever I thought they needed it.

"Do you know what maturity is?" I'd say brightly, like the smart kid on a quiz show, just itching to tell the answer. "Maturity is the ability to delay gratification."

And when the recalcitrant five year old, or wiseass adolescent, or indifferent co-worker inevitably tilted his or her head to the side and said something profound like "whaaa?" I would explain:

"It means you do the things you gotta do before you do the things you wanna do."

Yeah, it's a great concept. It made Mr. Peck a lot of money, and for those who could actually follow it, that one piece of advice alone was well worth the price they paid for his book.

As for me, I can quote it, I certainly believe it, but I still can't quite accomplish it. Which is why I'm heading off to clean my house sometime around midnight. But first I think I'll fix myself a nice cup of hot chocolate and visit a few more of my favorite blogs.