clean your shit yourself

This is the latest good lesson I learned.

In the middle of some conversation Uma tells me how she never allows the toilet cleaner lady to clean her toilet, (the pot, that is). The reason? Do they not clean it properly? No, just that it is not the right thing to do.

On giving more thought to this, I realized that she was very right. It is surely against human dignity. I would never want to clean anybody's toilet, let alone the pot. But this also is work, which is being done with all honesty and hard-work, and hence must be valued and respected (another philosophy of mine). Contradiction?

No. She does ask the lady to clean her bathroom, but not the pot. She can tell where the dividing line is. We all can. We all can make out the difference between the dirty and the dignified, if we care. There is no contradiction.

The more important lesson here is that she deems the cleanup as her own responsibility. Not only that she won't allow the lady to do it, she would do it herself. Think how beautiful and clean would our environment be, if we could all, as individuals, corporations and nations, graciously shoulder the responsibility of pollution cleanup (control).

So,
- Our garbage is our responsibility.
- Never ask another man to do something you think is dirty for you.