~ keeping a commitment

(Apr 15/09) Seems like such a silly thing, but when you work well into the evening, as I do, the logical result was consistently leaving kitchen clean-up til the morning. So I'd get up every morning, put the kettle on, and then have to do the dishes. But I would often feel a huge amount of reluctance to do them. Sometimes I'd give in to that reluctance, and the dishes would pile up all day while I felt bad for not doing them. I realized it was one of the ways my ego used to beat me up. So I came up with simple solution: do the dishes before you go to bed. I've kept to it pretty well. The once or twice when I've left them for the next day, I've regretted it; if I feel any reluctance to do them at night, I remind myself that I won't feel good in the morning if they aren't done. So now I take great delight in waking up to a clean kitchen, not only because it's clean, but because I've kept a commitment to myself.