[grondilu]

> In other words, we start to believe that we are not by default worthy of living a good, joyful, care-free, abundant life.. unless it is "deserved".

It's not about being "deserved". There is no merit, morality or legitimacy concern here. Just plain pragmatism : good things will not come to you if you just sit on your couch all day.

Take for instance item 4 in OP's list: cleaning. Well, I can assure you that if I don't clean my apartment, nobody is going to show up magically and do it for me.

> Of course, as any child knows...

Well yeah, because children have their parents do stuff for them. That's precisely OP's point.

[pjc50]

There absolutely is a 'morality' (in the socially enforced sense) of cleaning. It's not quite as bad as it used to be, but your level of cleanliness isn't entirely a free choice because it affects how people judge you. And, unless you're extremely independent-minded, how you judge yourself.

Similarly there is a 'morality' of leisure: Protestant work ethic and all that. Note that one of the sibling comments talks about feeling a lot more comfortable relaxing in (Catholic) Spain.

[TeMPOraL]

> Take for instance item 4 in OP's list: cleaning. Well, I can assure you that if I don't clean my apartment, nobody is going to show up magically and do it for me.

Maybe it should be like this. Our bodies clean themselves.

I keep wondering, how's the research in self-maintaining and self-cleaning materials going. Surely, getting rid of the need to constantly clean your house will require a lot of small breakthroughs, but it is a worthy goal given the time we all collectively waste.

(Personally I view all maintenance as waste - you have to pay your dues and not skimp on it, but you should at the same time minimize the cost as much as possible.)

[laichzeit0]

Maybe because the people with means and influence don't really worry about this problem: they pay someone to do menial tasks like cleaning for them. I know in the country I live manual labour is so cheap I have a maid and a gardener that do that for me. It's so cheap I probably wouldn't bother automating it even if I could. The furthest I go is packing a dishwasher. Just because I don't like dirty dishes standing around on the days that the maid isn't there.

[lagadu]

> Well, I can assure you that if I don't clean my apartment, nobody is going to show up magically and do it for me.

The roomba and our cleaning lady are magical?

It's very simple: I get paid x/hr, the roomba as time advances effectively approaches a cost of 0/hr of work (same goes for the clothes and dishwasher) and the 1 hour the cleaning lady spends here is cheaper than what either of us earn during an hour. Why would we possibly spend our valuable time doing that when we can outsource it to a person and a robot for much less?