What's That Smell?

As I was cleaning one of my clients homes today I noticed the numerous air fresheners throughout the house and I had a thought, then it turned into a revelation for me. I've seen these air fresheners in her home before, plug-ins, pop-ups, auto-sprayers, cans of freshener, scented candles and carpet deodorizers but didn't give it much thought. After all she has 2 dogs, a cat, she works 80 hours a week and doesn't have time to do deep cleaning and if she does have time that's the last thing she wants to do. That's where I come in, I get to do that for her. Let's face it, if you don't stay right on top of keeping a cat box clean, it stinks. Dogs can also add their own brand of smells. To help with this issue, in between cleanings, she uses approximately 6 different kinds of air fresheners. They are all nice scents but you can still smell the underlying odors that she is trying to cover up. I have to be honest here and I am sorry to say that my first thought was, why not just clean it? Why just try to cover it up? Now I know why, she's BUSY, that's why. Once I got past the obvious, it hit me. It's kind of like our lives. We all have "odors" in our lives. Things we are working on or should be working on but for one reason or another we aren't. Reasons like, I don't have time, it's just to hard, or we are just being lazy. So we "try" to cover them up. It may seem like we succeed but eventually the "odor" resurfaces and we have no choice but to face the stench once again. All this to say, am I covering up my problems, issues, deficiencies (whatever you want to call them) or am I cleaning them up. I think I have some work to do.