This willingness to be frank and plain about the way that the world is, is a good first step. But that doesn't mean that you get what you want.

My wife, there's certain kinds of housework that she just doesn't see as necessary to do in the way that I do. Things like the state of our closet or where things are in the kitchen. I have this almost unhealthily obsessive desire to have things in their place and she just totally doesn't. And this is a potential point of conflict, of course.

We have to always spread sugar on top of it in order that we can tolerate swallowing the things we're supposed to do, which is an incredibly depressing way of thinking about living your life. Not just that your work or your home life would be so miserable that you have to slather sugar on it, but then the sugar is all you're tasting. If that's the only way that I'm finding meaning, then we have this sort of mental diabetes that we're descending into.

If you stop someone who's talking about something being fun, and say "Well what do you mean?" it's almost impossible to answer.

I think this dichotomy or opposition between work and play, between leisure and serious stuff, is definitely a bad way of thinking about the useful insights that play provides.

Forcing your spouse to stop doing that bad habit that drives you crazy, or making your kid be better at math or at art or at swimming, or making your parents or your in-laws not be annoying in the way that they're annoying, these are sometimes doomed goals.

Once you get yourself on that path where you're willing to find something delightful in laundry and in dishwashers, it means that you train yourself to be able to find it almost anywhere in almost anything.