As you may know, I believe Fun Is not a four letter word. I Know that If we are able to Inject Fun into almost every  situation, we are more  clearheaded,  lighthearted,  and full of vitality. When injecting fun into every situation is as natural to us as shaking our fists at errant drivers, we will be able to see more clearly who we are meant to be. (How is that for an introduction that connects this article with My Big Mission?)

Doing the Laundry Can Feel Overwhelming.

Injecting fun into doing the laundry is a great place to start.  Learn how to inject fun into almost anything.  Besides death and taxes, the laundry shall always be with us. If we keep up on this task, it’s not much of a problem. But if we put off doing the laundry because it’s not fun and feels like drudgery, we are setting ourselves up for unhappiness.

So if we learn how  to inject Fun into doing the laundry we will accomplish several things at once   (Multi-taskers take note!):

• We will build our resilience.
• We will learn to be proactive instead of procrastinate.
• We will increase our sense of well-being and self-esteem.
• And we’ll get the damn laundry done!

Here is how my husband Murray and I make doing laundry fun:

Murray works four days a weeks at the coast, I do much of my work from home, so the bulk of laundry duty falls to me. I am fine about that. Unlike technology, which sometimes tries to kill me, the laundry is a concrete task.  B ecause I can touch everything and move everything at will, I have Control over the laundry. And Control, as you may know, is an aphrodisiac. Therefore, doing the laundry is sexy.  If doing the laundry is sexy, then I am sexy. If I am 58 and sexy, this is a good thing. This is one reason Murray really likes it when it’s  Laundry  Day.

First I pick up clothes, put them in the washer, add the soap, turn on the water, and voilà! Wet, clean clothes.  I move the wet clothes into the dryer, turn the dial, and voilà!  — dry clothes.

So far, so good.

It’s the folding of the laundry that can back up and not be fun. Also, because I am legally blind, matching socks can be a black hole energy  and joy suck. That’s the technical term for it. I could choose to gnash my teeth, and shake my fist at Fate, for strikingly blind in my 30s, and bringing such frustration and misery upon my innocent self. I’ve done a bit of this and in some ways it’s a little bit fun, but mostly thinking and feeling this way just makes me feel icky.

The Joy of Flinging

My solution to this sock-matching dilemma: fling all of Murray’s socks and underwear onto the floor next to his dresser.  Directions: I pick up one of Murray’s socks, fling it to the floor. and shout: “Take that, socks that are difficult to match!”  I swell with power. “And take that, Murray’s underwear, too!”

I’m having fun and the laundry is getting sorted. But perhaps the most important part of this story, is how Murray interprets this underwear/sock pile on the floor. When he comes home, and walks into our bedroom, and sees the pile of socks and underwear he usually shouts with joy something like: “The Laundry Goddess has paid me a visit!”

Let me tell you, his calling me the Laundry Goddess makes it much easier for me to do his laundry for him with joy. I know he’s going to be thrilled, and I mean thrilled, when he sees the pile of clean socks and underwear on the floor. He interprets this pile, which lesser peoples might think of as proof of my sloppiness, as proof that I love him.

So here are the simple, though not always easy, steps to injecting fun into anything:

1. Decide you are going to inject fun into everything you can.
2. Find a way to change the story of oppression to a story of Joy. Let yourself be a little wicked and a little outrageous in this process.
3. Marry someone with a great sense of humor who really loves you.

See? Simple.