Is there virtue in cleaning your own house?

We are growing more accustomed to having someone come to our house each day, sweeping, washing the floors, doing the dishes. It feels like you’re in a hotel. I still struggle with the concept of that much assistance.


I have spent thousands of hours cleaning my own house, washing my own dishes, doing the laundry, cooking. Full weekends have been spent engaged in household duties, and completing all or some of these is how I have defined weekend fulfillment. That is NOT the experience here, even for very middle class folks. (I assume it is not the experience ANYWHERE, for the wealthy, unless that is what they choose to do.) If you tell your US colleagues that you spent the entire weekend on house chores, they will nod with understanding. I imagine that if you tell that to your Indian colleagues, it would appear strange…Like someone in America saying they spent the weekend grinding stones into sand, when it is easier and more time-effective to simply buy the sand outright. Is a life without these “duties” a better life? What would most of my American friends and family have done with all of that extra time? Would we have used it to solve world hunger, or to write the great American novel? When you are relieved of the mundane tasks of life, are you more likely to become your fully realized self? Should we all aspire to do less of these mundane tasks, if we can possibly afford to? (And in India, as I said, most people can afford to - - you can have a full time cook/housekeeper for $200/month, and that’s probably the inflated expat pricing - ) Should I look back at thousands of hours of house duties, and conclude that they were a waste; that I could have been doing something “bigger” to “fix the world” during that time??