It was not long ago that a TEDx speech popped up in the recommended section of my YouTube feed. It was a talk on “What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness” and was delivered by Mr. Robert Waldinger – a psychiatrist and a Professor at Harvard Medical School. The title caught my attention and evoked a sense of curiosity in me.
I remember looking at the title and thinking to myself – “What is it that makes a good life?”. The first thing that popped in my head and you must have guessed it right – was “Money”. We often find ourselves stuck in a rat race, living paycheck to paycheck, trying to earn bread for our families that we forget what’s really important.
Prof. Waldinger revealed that the most important thing for a happy and fulfilled life was our investment in good relationships. It wasn’t our ethnicity, our family background, our history, our level of education, or the work we do. What mattered most was the relationships we nurtured throughout our lives.
It was certainly food for thought but somehow, I was in disagreement with things Mr. Waldinger had to say. Maybe it was because I didn’t realize the importance of nurturing relationships in my life or maybe because I took them for granted and was mostly pre-occupied with work. However, this lockdown completely changed my outlook.
I still remember coming back home late at night and having a conversation with my wife about some virus that had spread in the Wuhan district, in China. Little did we know that it would wreak such havoc in all our lives.
The first couple of weeks of the lockdown were a bit stressful. However, it was a great opportunity to spend time with my family. My wife and I decided to make the most of it and spend as much time with our son as possible.
Given the lockdown, our maid couldn’t visit us. My wife knew that it was going to be really tough trying to manage work alongside the added household chores. I jokingly said that she needn’t worry about anything as I was more than capable to help her out when it came to doing the chores. As soon as I said it, my wife had a smirk on her face as if she had got me now. We both knew that I was never good at household chores and procrastinated a lot. But now that I had time, I thought to myself, how bad could it really be? (Believe me, it is A LOT of work)
As soon as I made the claim of helping her out, she started dividing the chores between us two.
“Cooking and Dusting – I’ll manage”, she said. “You do the dishes and the laundry”.
“The dishes and laundry?”, I asked reluctantly. I remembered how much I hated doing the laundry when I was in college and lived in a hostel. But I still agreed to it. Maybe I wanted to re-live those memories.
Next Day – Time to do the chores.
My wife was already in the kitchen cooking as I walked in. I remember seeing 5-7 utensils in the sink and thinking – “Yep, this is a piece of cake.”
I got through the dishes in 10 minutes and felt as if I had conquered Mount Everest. For some reason, my wife kept observing me and had a smirk on her face.
“Done with it already! What’s next?”, I asked.
“That fast? I’m impressed! There are a few dirty clothes in the washing machine that seek your attention. But have your breakfast first.”, she said.
After having breakfast, I went to the bathroom to do the laundry. I saw a few dirty clothes in the washing machine and smiled. “Won’t take much time”, I thought to myself.
Little did I know that my wife was standing behind me with a ginormous bundle of clothes. It felt as if the whole neighborhood had sent clothes to our house.
I have never been so daunted by clothes in my life. Soon, the memories kicked in and I remembered how much I hated doing the laundry. It was then that I knew, maybe I had bit off way more than I could chew.
But the task was in front of me and I was going to come out a winner. My wife observed me for 5 minutes and smiled at my goofiness as I started watching a YouTube tutorial on “How to wash clothes”. She finally stepped in and started helping me out. It suddenly didn’t feel like a task anymore. We started having so much fun. The witty banter that we engaged in, her laughter that lit up the whole bathroom (all thanks to my sense of humor, of course), it blew me away. It was the most alive I felt in years. I didn’t know what I was missing all this while being stuck at work. We completely lost track of time. It is one of my most cherished memories of this lockdown. All this, because I decided to share the load and help out my wife.
From that point on, my wife and I washed our clothes together, helping each other out on all fronts. It was not about the demarcated chores anymore. We started doing all the chores together. We started talking so much. I discovered so much about her. Things I never knew. We hadn’t bonded like this in a really long time.
Now that I think about it all, this has exponentially improved our relationship, for the better. And I see clearly, how nurturing and investing in real relationships can lead to a fulfilled and contented life. No amount of money can develop such a bond between a couple. It is about doing things together, respecting one another, and ensuring absolute transparency and communication. For us, the trigger was doing the laundry together and having the time of our lives. For you, it may be something else.
Maybe there was some truth to the research after all. Relationships matter a lot more than money ever could. Thus, I know that from this point on, I will go out of my way to build relationships with people, especially my family. The first step, of course, is to be willing to #ShareTheLoad.
I will #ShareTheLoad and help in household chores in association with Ariel India and BlogAdda.
#ShareTheLoad #ShareTheLaundry #ShareChoresMultiplyLove