Keeping your Brain Clean is like Keeping your Bathroom Clean.

Hey friend.

Wouldn't it be awesome if you could just, one day, get a brand new bathroom, give it a really good scrub once and then never have to clean it again?

I have two teenaged sons, not to mention one husband, so I think about cleaning my bathroom a lot.  Like, A LOT.

It's not that cleaning the bathroom itself is hard for me.  It really isn't.

I know exactly what to do.  I have a routine for my daily, weekly and monthly cleaning.  I know each step by heart.  I've got the routine down so well that it doesn't even take that long.

I mean, I've had a lot of practice.

The only problem is that. . . well, if I'm being honest. . . the other humans in my house continue to exist in my bathroom.

So I have to keep cleaning it.

I know, I know.  I don't have to clean it.  I have other options.  I admit it -- I choose to clean the bathroom myself.

But let's not get distracted by rational, objective thinking right now so I can finish my point.

Keeping my bathroom clean is like that movie Groundhog Day.  You know, the one with Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell.

I feel like I'm in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania -- cleaning my bathroom

Over. . .

and Over. . . 

and Over.

And those humans.  They keep using my bathroom.

So I keep cleaning the bathroom.  For the very simple reason that I enjoy my life more when my bathroom is clean (although I don't really enjoy the actual cleaning process.)

Our brains are the same.

Some days, the brain just needs a little tidying up.  Five minutes for a quick wipe down and you're good.

But at least once a week, you have to really scrub the surfaces with that bleach liquid cleaner.

And then there are the days -- they don't happen as often, but they happen -- when the only thing that will work is getting down on your hands and knees and really putting some elbow into it.

It would be great if you could just clean that like one time, and then your brain would be good forever.

Because those cleanings can be exhausting.

The temptation is there, for sure, to just turn off the lights and shut the door as you think to yourself "Wow, it's a freaking mess in here!"

But the other humans -- and all of the other circumstances that exist outside of us -- will still be there.  And, truthfully, if we could change all of the external circumstances, we probably wouldn't.  (Okay, maybe some of them, but definitely not all of them.  Not even all of the ones that annoy us.)

So we commit to getting in there with the bleach and scrubby sponge, and we really go after it.  Sometimes we go after it so strenuously that we actually feel a little bit worse for a while after we're done.

But, it's totally worth it.  Like bathrooms, our brains need to be regularly cleaned.

It definitely takes some work, but we'll enjoy life so much more with a clean brain.

So, my friends, I salute us.  I salute our dirty bathrooms, and our brains, and all of the hard work that we do every day to keep them clean.

Talk to you soon.