My Account

Search
Close this search box.

Who Would You Be If You Weren’t Keeping Score?


Do you treat your family interactions like business transactions – down to the penny?

I’m Still Learning How to Share

You may have mastered how to share on the playground when you were a kid. But I didn’t.

So I’m learning now, living with my partner.

We Share All Our Chores

We share the cooking (we each cook every other day). We share cleaning, shopping, laundry, financial contribution. You name it, we share it. Overall, it’s a very balanced situation.

But I still sometimes have stressful thoughts about fairness that I like to question with The Work.

For Example, We Wipe Down the Shower Every Day

And our system for sharing is to more or less alternate every day. Now I wouldn’t have a problem if it was ALWAYS alternate every other day.

Then it would be totally controlled. Like our cooking schedule. That’s in my calendar. I could tell who’s day it will be to cook on any date five years from now.

But cleaning the shower is not a big enough task to put on the calendar. Plus, there are variations in the schedule that make planning down to that level of detail impractical.

Cleaning the Shower Is a Loosely Shared Job

And because it is not “highly regulated” it allows me to see my mind, my judgments, my own propaganda machine at work against my partner.

Thoughts like, “I did it three days in a row! It’s not fair. He tries to cheat. He lies to me. He doubts my memory.” They all can be questioned with The Work.

Sure I could fix it by making a schedule “on paper.” But I kind of like the idea of doing this without support from any outside authority.

I tend to lean heavily on paper rules. Like a parent’s rules, they are absolute. But this is about finding my peace even in a lawless land.

I Was Cleaning The Shower This Morning

I can’t remember if it was the second or third day in a row for me. I noticed the tension at the thought, “Hey this isn’t fair!” And I simply asked myself, “Who would you be if you weren’t keeping score?”

I would be so relaxed. Enjoying the physical experience of cleaning the shower.

I don’t even mind the job if I’m not keeping score. 🙂

Where are you keeping score? It could be a great area to question your stressful thoughts.

Have a great week,
Todd

“When a thought appears such as ‘Do the dishes’ and you don’t do them, notice how an internal war breaks out. It sounds like this: ‘I’ll do them later. I should have done them by now. My roommate should have done them. It’s not my turn. It’s not fair. People will think less of me if I don’t do them now.’ The stress and weariness you feel are really mental combat fatigue.” — Byron Katie, Loving What Is

Get two new articles about The Work of Byron Katie every week, plus my checklist for the Judge-Your-Neighbor-Worksheet. Subscribe to the newsletter here.

If you like this article, feel free to forward the link to friends, family or colleagues. Or share the link on Facebook or other social media. If you have thoughts you’d like to share about it, please leave your comments below.