Day 11 - We set the standard for every room we stand in
The purpose of today’s class was to have some fun and learn something new.
- Em Hrovat
Journal Thoughts
A COOL THING about engaging regularly with a mindfulness practice, is that you start to see lessons and insights everywhere.
A while back, I was working at a mortgage company as a travel coordinator. One morning, I had gotten to the office really early and was the only one there for about an hour. I started the coffee makers and used the bathroom quickly, while I waited for it to brew. While I as in there, a toilet paper square fell on the ground.
I’m not proud of the laziness of this moment, but I didn’t pick up that square. I left it there.
This happened around 8am and around 12:30pm, when I revisited that same bathroom, and same stall. I froze for a moment as what I saw and what I learned arrived simultaneously. The floor was covered in toilet paper squares. A lot of them. Enough that it seemed like the floor was made of Cottonelle rather than the tiny, yellow, square, ceramic tile I was used to seeing.
Do you see?
We set the standard for every room we stand in. We are always subconsciously scanning the people that cohabitate the spaces we occupy, looking for what the standard of behavior is within that group. This happens at the post office, the grocery store, at group gatherings, and in the bathroom stalls of mortgage companies.
Make it your mission today, to leave every place a little better than you found it or at least strive to be a reason people believe in the good in people.
You never know who is looking on at your behavior for reinforcement of how they should act. Let yours be an example of good.
Give an employee of a store you visit extra kindness and patience
Clean up a mess you see even if it isn’t yours.
Put a strangers cart away when they leave it in a parking spot.
If more people lived to intentionally make places better, this world would be a lot different.