I’ve finally figured out where all my energy goes on the weekends: creating order from the chaos of the week. Come to think of it, this reminds me of what I recall from the theory about entropy. Any system’s natural tendency is chaos, i.e. disorder. The only way to create order in a system, is to expend energy, which increases the order in a system. Without energy applied, an equilibrium with higher entropy (read “chaos”) results.
The more I think about it, the more I see the same thing happening in my house. During the week, I’m tired and expend less energy keeping things nice and neat around. Dirty laundry piles up, used dishes gather, things get dusty, the carpet starts needing vacuuming, unread mail lies around the kitchen table, etc. Once the weekend starts, I redirect my energy from the office towards my house: doing laundry, cleaning up, running the dishwasher, filing mail, etc. With this energy applied, the order increases and I feel better about the house. Then Monday comes around and the same cycle repeats.
The unfortunate thing is, if I were to go away for the weekend on a little getaway, the disorder would not decrease because I wouldn’t spend any energy on the house. The weekend afterwards would then be twice as tiring as I’d have to clean up twice as big a mess. That’s one reason why weekend getaways, apart from the cost, sometimes seem less attractive.
So I guess next time someone asks me what I’ve been up to during the weekend, the answer is: reducing entropy!
A few years ago, I found myself going to various stores to find out where a specific item, say a DVD, cost the least. I was driving around from the first to the second store, from the second to the third store and then back to the first store to buy it there after all. And all this to save $3. Or I’d go to one store that I knew had the item I needed (e.g. after shave), but I wouldn’t buy it there. Instead I would drive to a second store for this item only to buy it there $2 cheaper. Been there, done that?