Scrubbing the floor regularly
Someone suggested I learn about a writer named Pico Iyer. In an interview I listened to he talked about the musician Leonard Cohen, who apparently spent time living as a monk. Cohen’s practice, according to Iyer, included scrubbing the floor.
The practice doesn’t sound glamorous. You can hire someone to do it. Why bother if you can afford not to?
The movie Amazing Grace, about William Wilberforce, showed John Newton living monk-like and scrubbing floors.
My podcast guest Cassiano Laureano, world record holder for most burpees in an hour, told me about scrubbing his gym’s floors for hours at a time.
Over the past five years or so, I’ve adopted a practice of scrubbing my floors each day I lift weights at home. This frequency meant once every five days for years until last summer. Around my fiftieth birthday, I changed my cycle to a six-day frequency. So every sixth day I get on my hands and knees and scrub the floor.
I wouldn’t call the practice meditation, but I would call it meditative. It creates discipline and therefore self-awareness and personal growth. It costs nothing and give me time to think, plus cleans the floor.
To clarify, I usually mostly sponge the floor, though occasionally scrub. Since I started doing it regularly, I think between five and ten years ago, I don’t think I missed a day I was home.
I recommend the practice, along with making your bed daily.
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