A moment's reflection is enough to reveal that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is the universe's longest running cosmic joke. No matter what puny efforts we make, in the end everything falls apart. Some may take comfort in the hope that in the ultimate hereafter the Divine Joker who inflicted the Second Law on us will make everything all right. In the meantime, we are confronted not merely with our eventual disintegration but also with the daily mess. 
I hate the daily mess. I have never been good at dealing with it, and my failure to master the petty organizational details of my life has been a lifelong irritant. I am particularly irritated because I am quite aware that the petty organizational details of life can be mastered, at least in the short term on a day to day basis. Going to college really brought this home, since I spent four years rooming with someone who was not only scientifically brilliant (and amused himself in his spare time by picking up Chinese) but also impeccably organized. Since his homework was generally done before dinner, he could relax in the evening reading science fiction before going to bed at 9 p.m., about the time I was sweeping the mess off my desk so I could start working.
Nevertheless, perpetual optimist that I am, I spent today picking up, throwing out, and cleaning off in the oft repeated hope that if I established a baseline of tidiness and organization, at little maintenance would preserve order in my life. But I do not really believe it. I am still good at the flash of concentrated effort. (Not as good as I once was, but as good once as I ever was, as Toby Keith put it.) But the daily nit-picky, habit forming, regimen following discipline that maintains daily order, while I long to embrace it with my programs, checklists, reminders, planners, schedules, and calendars is as elusive to me as the glimmering girl to Aengus. Ben Franklin, why has thou forsaken me?