What a Toilet Seat Cover Can Teach You About Complacency

I had one of the strangest but most enlightening epiphanies yesterday at work. You know those disposal toilet seat covers that typically hang out in most public bathrooms in the big dispenser on the wall?

Well as a kid my mom taught my sister and I the art of squatting so we never really used those annoying seat covers.

It wasn’t until I was in high school that I started using the paper seat covers and honestly, I never really liked them! It was more of a hassle for me but it got to the point where I was tired of squatting. My thighs would burn (yea, I probably needed to work out more), my balance was off and sometimes the back of my leg would touch the toilet. YUCK!

At this point in life I’ve been using toilet seat covers for more than 10 years. What I dislike most about the paper covers is the fact that they don’t seem to stay where they’re supposed to stay… on the toilet seat!

One time I placed the toilet seat cover neatly on the toilet and as soon as I was about to use it, the automatic flush disrupted my whole set up and flushed the dang thing down the toilet. Other times the cover would nearly fly away if the AC was on high.

Earlier this year my aunt shared a Facebook post that blew my mind! It was edifying but also left me feeling silly as hell. Here’s the post that had me dumbfounded.

As you can see, this post is from August of this year! All these darn years I was putting the toilet seat cover on the wrong way. I was placing the flap on the inside of the toilet which often resulted in the seat cover prematurely flushing down the toilet.

For more than 10 years I misused this “resource” and never once did I try to find a new way to use it to make it work for me, seek out alternatives or spark up a conversation with someone who may have had a similar experience.

I became complacent. I figured “this is just the way it is,” ” I guess I have to deal with it.”

Now clearly this isn’t that big of a deal BUT, sometimes we have the same thought process for areas of our lives that DO matter.

Like our relationships, our finances, our spirituality, our purpose, our misfortunes.

We can’t find a man or a woman so we accept the self-imposed narrative, “I guess I’ll be lonely forever.” “Love must not be for someone like me.”

Instead of being proactive, we become reactive.

We have issues with our finances and just can’t seem to make the right financial decisions, but instead of seeking out professional help, educating ourselves or conducting an honest evaluation of our finances, we accept the narrative, “I’ll do better next time.” “I’m going to keep trying (the same thing) until it works.” “Once I get my tax refund I’ll do XYZ…” and we don’t follow through.

If any of this sounds like you, you are not alone. I’m guilty as well!

I’m sure you’ve heard that saying,“insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.”

Let’s do better. My toilet seat cover epiphany convicted me in a way.

It made me question the other areas of my life where I’m accepting a self-defeating narrative. The key is to acknowledge where we are, how we got there and figure out what we need to do differently to get the results that we want to receive.

Let’s Chat: Have you ever had a mundane experience teach you a valuable life lesson? What area of your life do you need to evaluate and become more proactive in? Share your feedback below!