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.

“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?”

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…!

“Alone, each of us is a visionary, but working together, we become a force of unimaginable power.”

— Michael Gurian

http://www.gurianinstitute.com/