Who’s going to clean the toilets when we have all “reached our potential”?
November 19, 2007 – Libby Davy – Print
If we all do what we are passionate about… if we all seek to live out our potential… as suggested by me and a million other thought “leaders” and success coaches…
who’s going to clean the toilets?
someone who’s passionate about toilets?
Or could it be we are suggesting the perpetuation of hierarchy here.. is heirarchy inevitable. Are class systems inevitable, inescapable. Will there always be someone “below” us.. less evolved than us…
I truly truly wonder what you all think.
(Many thanks to Flickr and I’m George. The one I really wanted to use was by Vitor Sa, but he is not sharing it.)
Oooooh.
Hierarchy is a tough beast to slow down. Even when starting with the best intentions the emotional, physical, mental and spiritual cost of achieving one’s goals can leave some people thinking that it is beneath them now to clean toilets. “I’ve climbed that mountain, now why should I come down? There’s plenty of people still down there aren’t there?” “What would they do if I did it?”
I have witnessed it happen before.
To lessen the evolutionary significance of achievement in society is, I fear, too big a thing to consider. People who ‘achieve’ are very defensive of it.
But what if there were a road to potential that didn’t require so much personal and spiritual sacrifice? A personal/professional world could be a plateau of contentment where the cleaning of toilets is appreciated as a necessary part of everyday life.
A bit like the man sweeping the shop floor at NASA who, when asked by the president what he did on the site said, “I put rocketships in space Mr. President.”
~biff~
hard to get passionate about cleaning anything but how about coming into a place of acceptance and peace about the toilet-cleaning? we can allow ourselves to do any mundane task and notice our reactions to it. if the self-talk says I am too clever, too wonderful, too unique, too tired, too angry, too busy, too overloaded, then isn’t that useful to notice? because that chatter is probably going on in the mind most of the time, taking us away from the NOW.
I have found that re-framing the whole experience as part of my contribution to my family or friends or even community on occasion makes it far less arduous.
Hierarchies are not necessary and not here to stay. Living communally soon breaks down these false notions of who is top-dog. You can find yourself on dish-washing duty with an M.P. on a kibbutz, or debating Sartre in fluent French with a bus-driver in Haifa.
Perhaps in England, we have become used to this driven way of life where we must all succeed, get a job, get a Ph.D., be seen to be successful. Does it bring any fulfilment? not sure!
I am loving the contributions here. I agree with Leah and have to do this every week! But what about the Eastern European lady who does it every day, all day at the public toilet block. Not as an experiential activity or a one off, but to feed her family. Can she feel she is connected to a higher purpose, to the achievement of her life mission or the team’s goals. I guess so.
I wish she was blogging.
The quote that really does it for me right now:
“Alone, each of us is a visionary, but working together, we become a force of unimaginable power.”
— Michael Gurian
http://www.gurianinstitute.com/
[...] an example. I blogged a question “Who’s going to clean the toilets when we have all reached our potential?” then sent a link for the post to two thinking bloggers I knew would grab it like a bone – Biff and [...]
[...] friend Libby raised a great question with me this week. If we all follow our passions and do what we love, who’s going to clean [...]
very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce
It’s OK, I will clean the toilet so you can all go out and reach your potential without stinkiness. I feel proud to be a facilitator of human potential, however, the cleaner next to me doesn’t really get what I am on about. Am I in the wrong profession? Why do my colleagues think I’m weird?
Fascinating blog entry! Fascinating blog. Will come back for more!
Here’s my penn’orth… 2000 years ago, Jesus said, “the poor will always be with you,” and he’s still got a point. You could say that while some are at the top of their “potential” ladder, others have just climbed on. In which case, there will always be people at the top, always be people at the bottom, and always be people climbing upwards. Thus, I don’t think we’ll ever *all* “reach our potential” in such a way as there would be no-one left at the bottom.
My next thought is, how do you define potential? What if one’s full potential is to clean toilets? I am not of the opinion that “you can do whatever you want if you only put your mind to it.” Yes, I may get to play Beethoven’s 4th piano concerto if I give up my day job and family in order to practise enough. I could easily make a fortune as an IT consultant, but I would have to sacrifice my family time to do so – but who would lose out, and who would benefit it I did? I will never work out the unified field theory or run a marathon, even if I dedicated my whole life to them. (Well, I could potentially run a marathon, but I couldn’t be @rsed!) Someone’s “potential” may never be the same as someone else’s.
Therefore, in my opinion, as one who is fully aware of both his potential and his limitations, and has decided *not* to “fulfil” those “potentials” at the expense of those who love me and depend upon me, I would suggest that the question itself is discriminatory and arrogant, having been born out of a foundationless, post-modern philosophy of “self-worth” and theraputic psychobabble.
I’m off to clean the toilet while I check my Twitter page…!
Redesign toilets so that they are really easy to clean; or so that they are cleanable by machine…..
To parse this statement:
“Or could it be we are suggesting the perpetuation of hierarchy here… is hierarchy inevitable. Are class systems inevitable, inescapable. Will there always be someone “below” us… less evolved than us…”
I suggest you ask janitors this question, the way you phrased it here. “Will there always be someone less evolved than us to clean toilets?”
Janitor: “Less… EVOLVED? You think I’m of another species?”
Libby: “Oh, I didn’t mean that…”
Janitor: “Kind of hard to find another meaning in the phrase “less evolved than us,” but let me ask who the “US” is in that phrase?”
Libby: “Uh, your betters….”
Janitor: “I see… so the fact that I own my own company and create jobs for immigrants and those in transition and just starting out, making people happy because their toilets don’t reek (in exchange for money) make me below you? So, I’m not a cubicle dwelling monitor monkey, wasting away in front of a glowing rectangle. I guess I should evolve, and move up from my class, eh?”
I meant “evolved” ironically Ben. I guess my hope is that people love what they do or at least accept it. It was as much a comment about try-hard first world “evolved” twats like myself as anything…
I came across this looking for something else; fascinating indeed due to my own personal experience…
I worked for a janitorial service for a year which included the toilet cleaning duties (I really like that suggestion about designing a machine to do it!) and I learned some things. It wasn’t my passion, but I found that I could practice having the best attitude about it that was possible for me, and in time I might be able to find work more suited to my ‘passion’ I think in almost any kind of work, there will be some sort of “toilet duty” included, in other words almost everyone likely has a part of their work that is distasteful for them. Toilet cleaning is good practice for this.
I have a dear friend who owns a small cleaning company. Her clients love her. She is passionate about presenting them with a sparkling clean environment and she’s good at that. She’s intelligent–a shrewd businesswoman and skilled in many ways that do qualify her for other kinds of employment. She chose this because it works well for her family. She also cleans toilets. She may not feel particularly passionate about that part of it, but it is only a small part of a bigger picture. She is passionate about delivering a good service to her clients.
Most likely, it would be the people like her who will clean the toilets while the others are reaching their potential.