Asked My Wife, Found Out I'm Repetitive, and That's a Good Thing

I've been trying to think of interesting things to post about on here for a couple of days now. I have a few topics that I'd like to write about eventually on good men in general, but I feel like I've been ignoring the attempt to chronicle my own adventures as a good man and wanted to turn back to that a little. The thing is, most of how I'm a good man is very repetitive. Today I asked my wife if she had any ideas about what I might post about today, and she told me that she didn't. I said, "well, how have I been a particularly good man lately?" and she answered that it would be posting more of the same, which got me thinking.

I could talk about how I went out yesterday and mowed the lawn, getting horribly sunburned in the process, or about how in the past week I worked on the garden, took out the nasty compost (getting ants all over me in the process of covering it up properly because apparently ants made a nest in our compost pile), wrangled the children, cooked about ten delicious meals, did 10000000 dishes, or any of the seemingly billions of things I do around here on a regular basis to make this place one that doesn't make my wife go crazy. The thing is, I've said that kind of stuff before, and I know I'll say it again.

What I realized when my wife told me that earlier is more profound and interesting, and therefore better for posting about. I realized that one of the main, most important parts of being a good man is that a good man has to do a lot of the same things day in and day out, and that's just part of the role. Regardless of a good man's dynamic (provider that earns most of the income and does comparatively less around the house, balanced situation, Mr. Mom, whatever), most of what makes a good man good is that he does things that are helpful to the household/life dynamic consistently. I don't do the dishes and hope for "benefits" (...okay, I might hope, but that's not my motivation!), I do the dishes because they need doing and I have the opportunity. That's what's good about it. It might mean going to a job that sucks because the bills need to get paid. It might mean mopping some crap when you're tired. It might mean getting the holy piss sunburned out of you while you mow because the yard is turning into a rainforest. But it probably means doing it regularly and without ulterior motive or complaint.

Of course, I'm being a bit unfair here. Not every "good man" is caught up in a stable relationship that requires full-time family-style maintenance. There are lots of good men out there that are still waiting to be found (many good men behave in ways that require that they're found, not finding). Those men have to do this kind of thing too, just for themselves. It means the same things about keeping up with household duties, the same thing about keeping up with the job, and the same thing about taking care of themselves as if they are the family unit that they're working for.

Anyway, to close, I think the reason that my wife's eyes light up so much when she sees me cooking isn't because I'm cooking. I think it's because I'm cooking again... I'm taking time regularly out of my life (which could be filled with myriad awesome things instead) and devoting it to us.