Have you ever wanted to fold laundry?
Several years ago, I noted in my journal that I’d had a rough Saturday — though I neglected to include any details. What I did record was that I wanted to do two simple things: fold laundry and play with my youngest son.
That’s it. Not my usual craving.
There was a time when I worked from home most days and used laundry to buffer doing other work, but my wife has usually handled the laundry with me as her fill-in. Between us, we’ve made a pretty good team of making sure we don’t live out of laundry baskets. But even with our tag team effort, there have been more than a few times when we’ve rewashed a load that had gone from dirty to fresh to dirty again without ever leaving the machine.
That day with my youngest, I just wanted to sort socks, fold a pile of T-shirts, and sit on the carpet with a kid who neither cared how productive or principled I had been that day nor understood anything about KPIs.
The levels of self-control I exhibit wax and wane with the phases of the moon, and that particular day had been a frustrating one. When self-control wanes, I generally stay up too late, get up too early, and eat too much junk food. I started my run late and dragged myself through it. I wasted way too much time watching worthless things on social media. I put off my responsibilities until they became the low roar of background guilt I fight most days. Then, I showed up late for something I was in charge of, smiled, and soldiered through. But I didn’t feel well — funny how overindulging in junk food can do that to you. During the entire meeting, I was physically uncomfortable and emotionally all over the place.
I got home and just wanted to reset. Not a big reset — no personal day of guru mountaintop reinvention. Just something small and familiar. Maybe something I could do with my hands that didn’t involve putting more garbage in my body.
That’s when I decided to fold laundry with my son sitting on the bed next to the pile of clothes. For those few quiet minutes, chatting with my toddler while he babbled back to me, something in me settled.
That wasn’t the first time laundry became a grounding thing for me. I’ve solved many good programming problems matching socks. The same holds true for sweeping the floor. Or reorganizing the garage for the fifth time that year. (Okay, it was really only the second.)
Sometimes, there’s comfort in repetition — even in the futility of it. A pile of laundry will never stay folded. The dishwasher will always need to be emptied again. Garbages will be filled and emptied over and over.
But maybe that’s the point.
Those moments — folding shirts, cleaning toilets, making beds, bathing children — don’t come with applause or special accolades. Almost nobody posts about them. There’s definitely no algorithm that boosts your content when you refill the toilet paper roll. But they do something to me — for me — that not much else can: they remind me that order is possible, even if it doesn’t last.
And maybe that’s enough.
What these reflections are really about is recognizing how long I’ve measured my worth by impact. Am I building something meaningful? Contributing something important? Being enough (or more than enough) for everyone who needs me? The questions come fast, and they usually don’t leave much room for the mundane.
But the mundane is where we all live.
In the last two weeks, I’ve written about the hero complex — about trying to be the guy who holds it all together. I’ve written about shame, and burnout, and the unforgiving pressure to prove I’m worth the space and resources I take up. But this — this quiet craving to fold laundry — felt like something else. Maybe even something better.
It’s weird, but folding that laundry felt like giving myself permission not to fix everything or even anything. I can’t fold a T-shirt nearly as well as my wife, and I won’t even bother to learn, because laundry is one of those things that, to me, can be done to just good enough.
That day, years ago, I was folding that laundry and being present with my babbling toddler who couldn’t have cared less if I folded his T-shirt in department store fashion or wadded them up and stuffed them in a drawer.
Years ago, I had the opportunity to sit for a time as a leader in my church congregation. Most Sundays were a blur of meetings, names, and responsibilities. I loved the people I served — still do — but there were weekends when I felt like I was fraying at the edges.
One Saturday, years before my youngest was born, everything had kind of fallen apart — my habits, my health, my spirit. I was supposed to be preparing for a big day of spiritual leadership. Instead, I was eating waffles and playing a tower defense game on my iPad.
By late afternoon, I was pretty upset with myself. And oddly, what penance felt like that day was playing with my kids. And folding laundry.
It’s strange, looking back, how clearly my soul seemed to know what it needed. Not penance or punishment. Not even a new five-step plan to better emotional management.
I just needed something simple, grounded, and restorative.
Laundry, funny as it sounds, is a great way to take some chaos out of life and restore order. Tidy piles of clothes tell me that life’s functioning — sometimes just barely, but it’s functioning. There’s a rhythm. My people are here — wearing clothes, getting them dirty, needing them clean again. It’s a simple loop, and one that can breathe meaning into life.
Look, I’m not standing on top of the guru mountaintop saying that keeping proper perspective will mean folding laundry will always be a life-changing event. I don’t usually look at laundry that way. There are weeks when I sigh audibly at the sight of a growing pile. Even though I know it’s untrue, I will still mutter under my breath things like, “Why am I the only one who folds anything around here?” I still have plenty of days when I resent how unending the cycle feels. (See what I did there?)
Fortunately, there are also moments when I see it for what it is.
It’s not laundry. It’s steadiness. It’s trying again — rinse and repeat. It’s order brought to chaos. It’s showing up in small ways for people I love.
It’s really just me, trying to climb out of the canyon, one towel at a time. There are towels at the top, and towels along the way, but the towels will never be the thing that keeps me in the bottom of the abyss.
There’s a popular quote from Admiral William H. McRaven about making your bed every morning. The basic idea: if you want to change the world, start by making your bed — because it teaches discipline, routine, and pride in small accomplishments. I’ve always liked that idea; been making my bed for as long as I can remember. These days, though, I’m not trying to change the world.
I’m just trying to be okay in mine.
Sometimes, that means making the bed. Or hanging up my wife’s towel. Or matching socks. Or wiping down the counter even though I’m not the one who made the mess.
If I may, there’s something almost sacred about being the kind of person who shows up for the ordinary. Who doesn’t wait for motivation and doesn’t expect applause. Who just does what needs to be done, quietly, over and over again.
I’ve been in roles that came with titles, and I’ve built things I’m proud of. I’ve chased too many big ideas. These days? I’m starting to believe that one of the most meaningful things is plain, simple consistency.
Steady hands and an open heart. A willingness to fold the laundry — again.
I won’t always be steady. Some days, I actively avoid laundry. Or, even worse, sometimes I do it resentfully. I’ve angry-washed the dishes more times than I can count. But at other times, I reach for it like a tether. Like a reminder that not everything has to be exceptional to matter.
There’s a basket of clean clothes on my bed right now and one by the stairs. I could go and put them away.
Not because anyone’s life will be changed by it, because it won’t.
And that’s the kind of life I want to live more often. One that doesn’t need to be extraordinary to feel good.
One where the simple things — the ordinary and mundane — remind me what it’s all for.
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