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September 19, 2006
Cleanliness should be an option
Years after it became inconsequential for their mothers to tell them to clean their rooms, the problem of clutter and neglected disorder persists for overloaded college students. With more classes, homework, tasks, and work on one’s mind than there are clothes on the dorm or bedroom floor, it is no shameful thing to keep a messy room.
Indeed, if a student is not averse to the relative state of mayhem in his or her room, societal obligation and social pressure should not exist to compel that student to tidy up. Cleanliness, at this stage in our lives, should invariably be optional.
Using the limited space in dorms requires a lot of creativity. All the shampoo, cereal, clothes, and other items that are needed regularly have to go into one dorm room; it is like cramming the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and basement storage spaces into one 6'x7' space and pretending there’ll still be a bare spot among all the books, shoes and bottles to have somewhere to sit. Organizing can seem like a challenge for even the most demanding neat person, but after sharing dorms, apartments, and houses, students emerge with a specialty for arranging and a tolerance for disarray.
The living spaces of college students should never be judged or looked down upon, save those visibly, hygienically, uninhabitable. Family, friends, and peers visiting a student’s room would hopefully delay drawing conclusions about his or her normal cleaning disposition. Tidiness should have low significance in judging the ambience of a room and the character of its owner.
There are higher priorities than a spotless room. Jobs take precedence before a pair of jeans gets folded, homework gains attention before shoes in the corner, and garbage is taken out earlier than the mounting pile of cans gets condensed.
The amount of time spent in dorms and bedrooms does not always justify the time and fervor needed to clean up after those days of chaotic searching for lost keys, dropped cell phones, or hidden bottles. Clutter is mere background while concentrating on a book or when involved in a riveting episode of ATHF.
Like all the other unpleasant duties of being an adult, there are many years ahead filled with the expectation to keep well-ordered living spaces. With so many other things to keep in mind and more tasks to complete, clutter is not a loathsome condition for students’ dorms.
Hygienic is obligatory; tidy is optional. But either way, roommates would be better to agree which path to takečthrough the strewn-about books, that is.
Posted by dwright at September 19, 2006 09:13 PM
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