Photo Shutterstock via Constantin Stanciu
My husband and I were hosting a Friday night “Weekly Wind Down” with friends. We had a great night of food, wine, and cupcakes, when my girl friend exclaimed, “You work so much, your house is so clean, and this food is so great! Wow! You’re wonder woman!”
“Thank you, anytime, no problem – I’m just so glad you guys can visit,” I responded.
My friend started to cry. “I’m a terrible friend,” she said. “If it was our turn hosting, I would have cancelled and made up some lame excuse. I just can’t pull off something this nice. And I’m so burned out from work and everything else. I don’t have time to clean my house, fix a delicious meal…You’re a much better friend to me than I am to you…and your homemade cupcakes are soooo good…”
Oh, no…Has it ever occurred to you that something that you do or may appear to be makes someone else feel inadequate? What if that appearance isn’t what it appears to be?
I took a huge breath and reached out to my friend. “What you see here – is an elaborate SHAM. Those cupcakes are homemade. They’re just not made in my home.”
“And they’re not made by me. I picked them up from a local bakery. What’s worse, is I concocted this elaborate sham where I scraped off the nice bakery icing, mixed it up in a bowl, and reapplied it myself to make it look like I made them.”
“My clean house? Maids. Nice yard? Someone else does that, too. This rack of lamb? Butcher shop. I deliberately threw away their aluminum pan and repackaged it into my nice platter to make it look like mine.”
“The crab mac ‘n cheese? Guilty. Even the salad was prepackaged. In fact, the only legitimate work that I did for our dinner tonight was slice the baguette to go with the cheese.”
Other shortcuts I take? I use grocery delivery that arrives right at my front door. We use meal boxes, meal delivery, and pick-up plans that we microwave.
I am a domestic fraud, and I am not ashamed. My life is a SHAM. I am very happy with my SHAM of a life. I abhor cleaning, yardwork, and everyday cooking. If you’re spending time on things you abhor doing, you’re living just another type of SHAM.
Today, I hope to inspire you to create a new and improved S.H.A.M. of a life.
S – Streamline
This tip saved my marriage. My husband and I both work full time and argued nonstop about chores and cleaning. We spent at least 4 grueling hated hours each Saturday cleaning our house and bickering with each other. We wised up, looked at our budget, and decided that we COULD afford to hire biweekly maids so that we could spend 4 hours hiking and doing FUN things to enjoy with each other. This experience worked out so well that we looked for other things to prioritize and streamline so that we could spend even MORE quality fun time with each other. To save money, we pack picnic lunches and go to discounted museums, free parks and hiking areas.
Where can you streamline your life?
H – Happiness
If you’re familiar with Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, her theory on tidying and organizing is to use the question “Does this item bring me joy?” to decide whether to keep or toss something. Spending time with friends brought me joy. Preparing meals, cleaning up, running errands to enable spending time with friends did not. I did not want to cancel our plans because of those barriers. I chose to engage in my elaborate glorified takeout scheme because it ultimately enabled Happiness.
A – Authenticity
By repackaging cupcakes and meals, and scheming to make things appear as though I made them, I was inauthentic with my close family and friends. I made the people I love feel inadequate by not coming clean about my tips and tricks.
M – Memories
I was walking out of work one evening with a senior leader when he remarked that his daughter was mad at him for missing her softball game that night.
“Oh, no!” I commented.
“Yeah, I have to go home and mow the lawn before my 2-week-long work trip tomorrow.”
“Anyone can mow a lawn, but not everyone can be a father.” He was slightly stunned by my response.
Your children will never remember how high the grass was in your yard, but they will never forget that you missed ball games or events to go mow it.
When you have a choice, choose to make experiences and memories with the people you love rather than joylessly enduring and spending time on things that just don’t really matter.
I’m proud of living a SHAM. Likewise, I hope that by being brutally open today I have inspired and encouraged all of you to rewrite your life into a new SHAM – Streamlining your priorities, choosing Happiness, living with Authenticity, and making Memories.
What are your ideas for living a SHAM of a life?
Always arguing about chores and tasks with loved ones? I developed this worksheet to quantify that effort. Download it here
