Don’t pee in the hallway

Picture this: Some people walk by your house. They’re not very nice.

In fact, they’re so extremely uncool that they leave a large turd on your doormat. A real turd. Foul smell and all.

I know, I’m being tasteless. Please bear with me, though, there’s a point to it. A good one, at that.

What to do?

Through no fault of your own, you now have a stinking mess outside your house.

So. What do you do about it?

Do you…

1. Find the people responsible for the mess and make them clean it up?
2. Clean it up yourself and sulk for the rest of the day, hoping it doesn’t happen again?
3. Leave it on the doormat and pee in your hallway?

Huh? Wait…that third option is just ridiculous, isn’t it?

Of course it is.

Even so: Metaphorically, peeing in the hallway is precisely what many people choose to do.

Bad solutions, good solutions

Let’s work our way up from the bottom of that list:

3. Peeing in your hallway

In the context of my turd-on-doormat metaphor, it’s bleeding obvious that this is a terrible “solution”. Sadly, when the mess made is in a less obvious context, it’s an all too easy way to go.

When those large factories outside town keep belching out toxins by the ton, when air travel emits vast amounts of climate gases every day – whenever you’re told about someone else polluting massively.

That’s when it’s tempting to go “Oh heck, those guys are so much worse than me; what little old me does won’t make a difference” and toss that broken cellphone in the regular trash or jump in the car for a comfy ride to the shop just down the street.

But it really does make a difference, you know.

You might not be able to measure it in millions of tons, but a difference is being made. And that little difference is metaphorically akin to peeing in the hallway when someone makes a mess on your doormat.

Dealing with other people’s mess by adding to it just isn’t a good choice.

Keep your hallway pee-free.

2. Cleaning up the mess yourself

In my humble opinion, this option is vastly superior to number 3.

Not only are you keeping your home clean, you’re also making the world a better place by cleaning up other people’s mess.

In my book, that’s enough to make it rank as an actual solution.

Not a good one, though.

Granted, you get rid of the current mess by cleaning it up yourself. But how do you know those same uncool people won’t come by again tomorrow and make a new mess?

The answer, of course, is that you don’t know.

If you never let them know in clear terms that their behavior is unacceptable, they might not even realize how uncool they are.

They might even think your doormat is a suitable place to leave their mess. After all, someone keeps cleaning it up for them when they do.

1. Make the polluters clean up after themselves

This is the best solution. It’s at least as good for your karma as number 2. And it’s also a lot more useful in the long term.

Apart from the immediate satisfaction of not having to clean up other people’s mess, chances are they’ll take notice and perhaps deal with their mess more responsibly the next time.

If you find them unwilling to clean up after themselves, run your mouth off about it – preferrably to the media. A mention or two in the news might do the trick.

Not holier-than-thou

I’m not going to pretend I always succeed in going for option 1.

I have my fair share of cleaning up the mess myself and sulking about it.

I do strive for option 1, though. And I work really hard to avoid those occasional hallway accidents

A good way to reduce the likeliness of those accidents happening is to participate in Reduce Footprints’ excellent initiative: Change The World Wednesday challenges.

Every week a new challenge is posted, giving you a concrete way to steer one aspect of your lifestyle in a greener direction.

{2 comments... read them below or add one }

This post was tagged with: cleaning up, direct influence, green actions, green talk, greening lifestyle, making a mess, motivation, personal impact, pollution, responsibility

Related Posts

• Does every little bit really help?
• Cleaning up when you break a CFL light bulb