Are you a toilet seat or a bathtub?

We all have different purposes in our life, and we all have different purposes in other peoples’ lives. Consider our bathrooms for example, there are toilet seats, shower cubicles, vanity units and bath tubs, or at least this is the case in most bathrooms I have seen, where each item plays a different role and each has its own value. For example, some people hardly use the bathtub in their toilets; people cannot go without using the toilet seat for even a single day, and the toilet seat goes on bearing all sorts of nasty shit people give to it; the shower cubicle has its own purpose and so does the vanity. My point being, no matter how often or how less frequent, and how differently people use these facilities their existence remains inevitable in a conventional bathroom setting.

Similarly, in our world, the physical and emotional realm we experience, every person is destined to have their own purpose which changes according to the person or thing they interact with. So, when it is clear that we all have different roles to play and those roles get changed according to the people or thing we are interacting with, why do people have to feel so restless and agitated sometimes with the role they are required to play somewhere?

Well, firstly, I think we all have expectations of what we want to be. We may be so determined and ready to be something for someone or something and when it turns out that that is not what they want or need us to be, we get disappointed. There is a requirement for a balance between the role we expect and are ready to play, and what is required in reality must meet one another for there to be harmonious relations, when there is a shift in this balance things feel agitated. For example, a friend of mine told me that they were really expecting and wanted to be the captain of their university social badminton team, but when that didn’t happen and someone else was chosen to be captain, it took my friend a long time to accustom to the different role they were given in reality, as opposed to what they had pictured in their mind. Granted, pre-building expectations allows us to chase dreams faster which is fine but, one needs to understand that expectations are there to be destroyed, only then do we understand our true purpose. Otherwise it would be like playing a character in a theatre play that was pre-rehearsed 100 times.

Similarly, there is a level of control that people choose or want to have over any situation they are presented with. People in general, not just people who are obvious control freaks, tend to crave the pride they feel when they have correctly judged a situation. Confession time: I personally have felt my ego satisfied when I have been correct about my judgements about people or things around me. I wish myself and others would remember the words of Picasso, “I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else”. Doesn’t it always? Yet, we are all assuming control and getting disappointed when our judgements fail us. Then again you may have wanted to be a toilet seat, a daily routine, in someone’s life and later figure out that you are nothing but a bath tub in their lower middle class, always busy for any luxury lifestyle. Its not your fault, you just misjudged the person to have more time for you. Don’t worry, there are always break days, days off, celebrations or self-care mania kicks in and where do they want to go running, to their bath tub, and that day its your duty to be there and play your role with pride.

Ultimately, if we let go of our expectations and our desire to be in control and accept the perpetual nature of life, we are sure to be peaceful, no matter what role is thrown at us. Why so, because eventually there is one person we have to put up with and care for, and have expectations on, and control the actions of, on a daily basis, its us. We need to be there for us and be ready to understand what we require, so that we are ready and geared both physically and emotionally to be there, in whatever required form for others and other things. “The meaning of life is to find our gift and the purpose of life is to give it away”, said Picasso, before I overuse Picasso, I just want to say that we should understand our gift and purpose fully, and only then will we be ready to give exactly whatever is required for ourselves and others.