I had a job once, working in heating and air conditioning. They hired me mostly to clean the floor.

I’m not talking about hardwood floors, or bathroom tile or something else simple and domestic. The floor I had to clean was the floor of a boiler room. There was dirt so thick that when you walked on it, you left footprints – like you were walking on the moon. You know, supposing the moon was brown and disgusting instead of the nice, clean, silver, color it is. I just had to assume there was concrete under the layers of grime.

I started with a mop and a bucket.

A few minutes later I had a very dirty mop, several gallons of brown water and a muddy floor.

Then I started hunting around for a shovel, pickax or any sort of bulldozing equipment I could find.

Eventually I settled on a hose, which worked the best. I could only do little bits at a time because the drains clogged so frequently, but after a few weeks, the concrete was finally visible.

Sure, it wasn’t something I would volunteer to eat off, but it no longer resembled a dirt floor. The difference from the starting point to the state I to which I had brought it was virtually night and day.

I patted myself on the back for a job well done.

My boss took one look at it and told me I had made a really solid start then asked when I would be done, because they had other work I could be doing.

I was crestfallen, it wasn’t that my hard work didn’t matter, its just that sometimes ‘just good enough’ isn’t good enough.

So I went over it a second time, then a third and fourth, until it squeaked when I ran the squeegee over it. I still wouldn’t have eaten something like a salad off it, but supposing I dropped a sandwich, I wouldn’t hesitate to apply the five-second-rule.

The floor was clean.

My job done, I started replacing air-filters, which had gotten filthy while I was working on the floor. Of course, by the time all the filters had been replaced, the floor was dirty again.

But that’s life. Everything is entropic. Everything requires maintenance. Keeping everything clean requires dedication, the right tools and lots of patience.