Happiness is a Clean Car

Here’s a quote I bet you haven’t read before. It’s from Sri Sathya Sai Baba, an Indian Spiritual leader born in 1926.

“You cannot be fresh and feeling fine, wearing a washed vest under an unwashed shirt; or, an unwashed vest over a washed shirt. Both have to be clean to provide a sense of tingling joy.”

The tingling joy part aside, it reminds me of something my uncle said to me the other day:

“Clean cars. Clean underwear. They both make you feel a whole lot better.”

And they do!

There are a lot of reasons you should wash your car (preferably at Metro Car Wash) including the maintenance of your paint and vinyl, keeping up the saleable value, and not looking like a slob to your boss in your company parking lot. But all that being said, one of the best reasons to get your car cleaned is simply to make you feel better.

A lot has been written lately about removing stress from your life by getting more organized, cleaning your house, or giving your office filing system a makeover. I think keeping a clean car does the same thing, on several levels.

First, it does feel better to walk out to a shiny car in the parking lot. You may not acquire the same confidence you would if you were walking out to a new Porsche, but it will let you hold your head up just a little bit higher. Let’s face it: it says something about you. It says you care and that you’re responsible. In an unassuming manner, it’s sort of stating that you’re cool. And feeling even a hint of cool will almost always get you feeling better.

Next, there’s that great feeling of sliding into an uncluttered surrounding. When there aren’t balled up bank receipts and tissues on the floor, when the console isn’t sticky with latte spills, when the dash isn’t sneeze-ably thick with dust, when there aren’t cracker crumbs and broken toys in the child seat … well, there’s peace. It may not remove all of your stress, or solve the mess you might have gotten yourself into last night, but it certainly can be calming—a little, sealed space in this world where things are clean and neat and you can listen to the music of your choice. Even if it’s only for a little while.

I often like to tell my employees that we are in the business of making people feel better, we just happen to do it by cleaning your car. And there is truth in this. You can see it in our customer’s faces when they drive away—they’re happier. I just wish more people knew this trick.

So the next time you’re feeling a little down, don’t go blow your diet on an ice cream sundae (which you’ll regret just a few minutes afterwards, and the mess of which will probably end up cluttering your car even more). Instead, try a car wash (again, preferably from Metro). And find out why I always say:

Stay clean my friends!

DJ DripDry