Your conscience and culture both prescribe a certain order of the way things are intended to chronologically take place in your life. In addition, each individual has a personal comfort level, a specific system of values regulated by his conscience. When the personal expectations you demand from yourself fall below the moral limitations you have subconsciously defined, an inward feeling of inadequacy, defeat and failure result.

Take a serious look at your environment and your style of life. This includes how you look, how you care for your possessions, how you decorate your home, how you spend your money and the people you spend your time with. If each of these elements is not perfectly suited to your inborn personality, a nagging feeling will eventually evolve in the back of your mind that something isn’t “quite right.”

Any deviation from your subconsciously defined, inborn values can trigger this obsession. Even the smallest maladjustments can impair happiness and need to be corrected. Make up your mind to eliminate all emotional discomfort from your life.

Once you have reached this “comfort level” in your own mind, you acquire a feeling of personal satisfaction and inward contentment. Contentment is derived from knowing you have done everything you could possibly do to correct, modify or improve any negative situation within your control.

Of course you can’t change some things and you have to accept those hindrances for what they are, but simply knowing you are doing your best, despite the obstacles, is the comforting factor.

There are housekeeping standards, nutritional standards, moral standards and standards that regulate every avenue of your life. Commonly referred to as “personal standards,” these values vary within each individual.

Your system of values, frankly, boils down to how much you care. Caring - about yourself, about the impression you leave on others, about your possessions, about your finances, or about any other aspect of your life – indicates that your standards are high. As a general rule, your standards in one area will not vary much from your standards in other areas of your life.

Those who perpetually live in a state of confusion without shame, trepidation or without any intentions of making it better are those whose standards are less than desirable. They plainly don’t care. If they don’t care about their own home environment, their personal values in other areas of their lives are probably of the same sub-standard level.

Things can, and often do, get temporarily out of hand. Life does occasionally become chaotic even for those with exceptionally high standards; but just because it does, that doesn’t mean your standards have fallen. In your own mind you know that you will make every effort to correct these situations as soon as possible.

Terri Emmett has written a complete HAPPINESS TRILOGY collection: THE ORGANIZED HOUSEKEEPER’S HOUSEBOOK; THE ORGANIZED HOUSEKEEPER’S SIX-WEEK CHARM COURSE; and 100 STEPS TO ETERNITY. For links to the complete collection, please visit http://www.touramerica.org We welcome you to visit and look forward to hearing from you at: housebook@verizon.net.

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