Headline, January 22 2025/ ''' MESSY PEOPLE MERITS '''

''' MESSY PEOPLE MERITS '''

A UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA STUDY tested the creative output of students working in a messy office space versus those working in a tidy one by asking them to imagine they worked at a Ping-Pong ball factory and had to come up with new uses for Ping-Pong balls.

THE PARTS OF MY BRAIN THAT make it hard for me to keep a tidy house, a tidy room, are also responsible for much of what I love about my personality. My home and my room is messy - and I don't feel bad about it.

I'm a therapist who writes about housekeeping hacks for messy people. When I post videos about my home - a place where clean laundry is tossed unfolded into baskets and a giant trash can on wheels rolls around my kitchen - the comment section explodes with admonitions that I am lazy.

My private inbox, however, is different. People often tell me my embrace of mess is revolutionizing their lives.

'' Are you saying that I'm not a horrible person and that I'm not just making excuses?''

'' I just found you and I'm already crying in relief that I'm not the only one.''

The world is harsh toward messy people. I get it. Not that long ago I thought the home of a mature, successful woman was a bright and airy haven, a la HGTV's famous interior designer Joanna Gaines, one with made beds and clear countertops.

Homes where all the stuff is neatly packed away into artfully labeled containers, and where there are no piles or smudges.

My home has never looked like that. For years, it felt like I failed the aesthetic litmus test for being grown-up and put together. But four years ago, I accepted something that freed me and brought unexpected joy : I am messy.

Messiness about to be celebrated. Instead, it is a problem to solve, a bad habit to rectify, something to apologize for profusely when a visitor walks in. At best, you might forgive yourself or joke about your defect - your character flaw, really, since the world's culture associates messiness with laziness.

I've been preaching my gospel that being messy is not a moral failing for years now. But I want to take it one step further : Messiness can be a good thing. All communities should have some messy people. We are not all meant to be Joanna Gaines.

Some of us are Molly Weasleys, our homes bursting with the cozy chaos of a loving family and cabinets full of odds and ends. We cannot be Martha Stewart because we are Thoreau, so consumed by capturing Walden Pond's essence that we need someone else to bring us meals and do our laundry.

And try as we might, no amount of clutching our items to see if they spark joy will turn us into Marie Kondo's closet, for we are Albert Einstein's desk.

The parts of my brain that allow me to produce handmade Renaissance costumes are the same parts responsible for a dining room bursting with fabric scraps and sewing supplies.

It's time we admit that what makes us shine can't be divorced from what makes us scattered.

Science agrees. For example, people who have A.D.H.D. are often messy because their brains' executive function center - the area that controls time management, focus shifting, memory and prioritization - operates differently from a typical brain's.

This atypical functioning can also create a higher level of divergent thinking and creativity, according to some research. The often-repeated claim that clutter is harmful to one's productivity and creativity may be wrong, as well.

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Messiness and Creativity, continues. !WOW! thanks KC Davis.

With most respectful dedication to The Global Founder Framers of The World Students Society - and then Parents, Students,Professors and Teachers.

See You all prepare for Great Global Elections on !WOW! - the exclusive and eternal ownership of every student in the world - : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter X !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011 :

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless