Brendan Coady

I was cooking dinner with my wife on the weekend and we were both feeling pretty exhausted from a long week and a few days of running around. We finished making dinner and decided to leave the dishes until tomorrow. I offered to do them because my amazing wife did much of the cooking.

When I woke up the next day and went to do my part, I found that much of the food scraps on our plates and cutlery and the knives we used was stuck on. It had become substantially harder to clean up the mess I had made than if I did it last night.

As I stood there mindfully completing my task, the metaphor struck me.

We have both recently had some disagreements with close friends. We have been having difficulty coming to terms with these disagreements, and moving on past them like respectful adults.

Of course, these disagreements have been small and petty, much like doing the dishes.

But what I realized in trying to scrub off a dirty knife, was the longer we allow these disagreements to exist, the harder they are to resolve. They become stuck on.

So after I finished the dishes, I texted my friend and apologized for the way I had been acting. I told him that his friendship was worth much more to me than winning a petty argument, and I hoped we could meet up and resolve things properly. He immediately texted me back that he too was sorry, and we should grab coffee next week.

Whether it’s dishes, work projects, chores, or relationships, we are better off cleaning up immediately. The longer we leave dirty dishes, the harder they become to clean.

Since then, my wife and I have implemented a new rule: no evening screen time until the dishes are done.

I’m honestly not sure if we’ll be able to stick to this, but we’ll give it a shot and see how it goes. There’s always an exception if you’re truly exhausted (and want to go to sleep), but there should be no excuse for scrolling on your phone or watching Netflix while dirty dishes linger.

Especially when it comes to relationships.

Edit:

To further extend the metaphor, there’s also leaving dishes to soak.

Sometimes things get so stuck on, it’s easier to leave them to work themselves loose before trying to clean up the mess.

I think the relevance of the metaphor is when a relationship gets so damaged, it’s best to just leave it be for a period of time. Some people call this a “cooling off” period, but I like to think of it as letting the dishes soak.