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Comment by kaiuhl | Hacker News Reader

Left alone to our own willpower, most of us would be less accomplished. We'd live in dirtier houses, wash the dishes less, and treat ourselves less well. It's the promise of others seeing our accomplishments, being around our mess, or seeing us naked that keeps us doing right by ourselves. Doing chores is a chore, but social pressure and acceptance is a powerful drug.

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I disagree. I clean my home because I like it that way. I work better in a clean, organized environment. I exercise because it makes me feel better and stronger, and is just a good idea for long-term health. I work on personal projects because I want the results of those projects to exist. About the only thing I do for other people is my actual job, which pays the bills for the larger home and more involved lifestyle that comes along with a wife and children. (Well, I guess the whole raising of children and participating in a marriage is done for other people. And charity work. But hopefully you get the larger point.)

Have you ever cleaned up because company was coming over? Then clearly external motivation was useful.

Now, you may have internalized a lot of this motivation, but at that point it's not a question of willpower just habit.

Believe it or not, some people clean because they like things clean, not because they want to impress other people. I am one of those people. A dirty environment makes me miserable, regardless of whether anybody else ever sees it (and I have many multiple-month spans of a clean apartment seen by nobody else to prove it.)

> Have you ever cleaned up because company was coming over?

Yes, but irrelevant. Note that I don't make an special effort, I just move my regular chores forward a bit so my place is seen at the peak of the cycle, rather than the trough.

the peak of the cycle

That's normal behavior. The point is by moving up the cleaning cycle you’re reducing the time in a trough which increase the average level. Aka 100,95,90,100,95,90... has a lower average than 100,95,100,95,90,100...

PS: Anyway, this is most people. If you’re an introvert that does not have guests it's a non-issue.

>Have you ever cleaned up because company was coming over?

I clean routinely and haven't had company over in nearly 3 years. I have absolutely no external motivation to clean my house other than I want my house to be clean. I exercise 3/4 times a week and my garage has become more or less a home gym.

I disagree with /u/ kaiuhl's examples and I'm not sure I understand their point.

My yards are a complete mess because I don't give a crap about how my yards look. I don't remember what my backyard looks like and I see the front yard twice a day getting in/out of my car to commute to work. I cut it from time to time when the sandburs become a problem.

I don't really consider the lack of lawn care to be less accomplished.

Lawn care does matter at least a little, for entirely practical purposes. Chest high grass is a wonderful place for vermin to move in, for example.

Why have a grass lawn in the first place?

In many parts of the country, it will turn into grass (not Kentucky Blue, but some grass or another) on its own if you really ignore it.

Or, it was grass when Nadya bought it, and I assume he doesn't care enough about it to go to the effort to put something else in.

Something other than grass implies caring, which the "I don't give a shit about yards" people axiomatically don't.

I wouldn't call myself lazy, but extremely apathetic. If it involves effort on my part for something I really don't care about. I'm not going to do it because I actually value my time and would rather spend my time on something I actually care about.

Plus I'm not the home owner.

I don't feel like calling the estate management for them to contact the home owner to get permission to tear out the yards and put in a chip or rock then have to go through the hassle of calling a place to order chip/rock, killing off the grass, and... eh.. I just don't care. That's already 5 steps too many to change something I don't care about. Without even getting into the cost of doing so (which is just another layer of "I don't care enough to pay to have this changed")

> My yards are a complete mess because I don't give a crap about how my yards look.

I think that's the core observation. Some people care about how their house looks. Personally, I don't, so I usually clean stuff up only when someone is coming over. Some, like me, care about how their documents look, or about using interpunction, paragraphs, etc. Others (most of the people I know) don't. There's limited amount of things one can care about, and different people care about different things.

To be fair, previous poster said "most of us". I'd be inclined to believe the majority are wired that way.

I wanted to say I disagree - I actually like cleaning up my house, taking care of things, keeping all maintained. And I do it for myself (do not live with anyone else).

But... as it turns out... it is all for show anyways. When I dig deep into "why" It comes out that I like to be seen as someone who cares and can do things right.

So, agreed.

Adam Smith in the Theory of Moral Sentiments (as paraphrased by Russ Roberts in How Adam Smith Can Change your Life): We all desire not only to be loved, but to be lovely. ("Lovely" being used in an older sense, meaning deserving of love.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_Moral_Sentiments

http://www.amazon.com/Adam-Smith-Change-Your-Life/dp/1591846...

I was a non cleaner for a long time (until early 30's).

I realised something after having with someone who likes cleaning. A clean house made me feel better.

Not just the way it looks, but untidiness translated into a tiny little worry-bubble in the back of my mind.

I realised I felt free in a way I hadn't before. So now I clean.

This is a little off topic, but I was watching Seinfeld last night and Jerry was cleaning up his apt for a girl and he said he needed to clean the bathroom. George said, "No! You think rockstars have clean bathrooms when girls come over?"

I think they do. I also think they hire maid/butler services.

As much as some of us may gripe, social conventions are usually established because they're for the best.

I slept and dreamt / That life was joy.

I awoke and saw / That life was duty.

I acted, and behold— / Duty was joy. [0]

(Wish HN treated single line breaks appropriately.)

[0] http://workingwithwords.blogspot.com/2009/12/on-duty-and-joy...

And when you have bad enough depression, s/We'd/We/. You'd be surprised how little any of that shit matters when you are more or less disconnected from the society that wants you to take care of those things.

You've touched a nerve. Apparently HN is full of people who need very desperately to believe that they are purely rugged individualists.

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