Updated by: May 11, 2026
The Broken Dishwasher
Our dishwasher has been broken for four months.
We’ve called plumbers. We’ve installed a new one. We still haven’t got to the bottom of it. And so, every evening, we wash the dishes by hand.
It reminded me of something Thich Nhat Hanh wrote in ‘The Miracle of Mindfulness.’ He said that when washing the dishes, one should be completely aware of the fact that one is washing the dishes. It sounds obvious. It isn’t.
His point was that most of us wash the dishes to get them done — to get to the cup of tea, to get to the couch, to get to whatever comes next. We’re physically at the sink but mentally somewhere else entirely. The dishes are just an obstacle.
Four months of hand washing has taught me something about this. There is a rhythm to it. The warm water. The small satisfaction of a clean plate stacked. The conversation that happens over the sink that probably wouldn’t happen otherwise.
Thich Nhat Hanh was right that it’s hard to be present for remedial tasks. The mind resists. It wants to be somewhere more interesting, more important, more productive.
But here’s what travel taught me — or rather, what the best travel has always reminded me. The moments that stay with you are rarely the headline attractions. They’re the egg coffee in Hanoi, sipped slowly before the city woke up. The wrong turn that became the best street you found. The hour you spent doing nothing in particular, watching a city go about its business.
Presence isn’t something that switches on when you arrive somewhere extraordinary. It’s a practice. You either bring it with you, or you don’t.
The dishes don’t care. They just need washing.
And somewhere in the doing of them — slowly, by hand, for four months — I think I understand what he meant.
Paul Mercuri
Wake Up Here Founder
