can we talk about toilets?
no potty humor here
olá people,
last week i wrote that i'm not a happy person and yet i experience happiness. not all the time or maybe even most of the time, but i recognize my good fortune and i truly appreciate my life. i've been that way for as long as i can remember—not happy, but not unhappy, and pretty appreciative—so when i started feeling zero happiness and zero appreciation at the beginning of 2023, i thought it was a little weird.
eventually, with the help of one of my nearest and dearest, i realized it was depression, and later i'd get a more specific diagnosis (dysthymia). i think i've had dysthymia all my life, but the other side of 40 has hit me hard and all the energy i had to tolerate shit (dysthymia, unrewarding friendships, aches/pains) i no longer had. just zero energy.
i’m grateful that i have an explanation for how i feel and now am in active treatment (therapy/medication). but for a while, i didn't know what was what and and like i have always done (and many of us do), i tried to find a way to feel better on my own.
one day, in the midst of feeling like a useless lump, i watched a youtube video about japanese practices for a better life. and one of the practices was cleaning the toilet every day.
at that point, i probably hadn't cleaned the toilet in 6 months and i thought, fuck it. i can't manage doing anything else but i can probably manage that.
from april 2023 to september 2024 (today ) i have cleaned every single toilet in my house every single day. every morning (ideally, but sometimes it's in the afternoon), i clean the toilet and say "thanks for getting rid of our waste, i clean you in gratitude and to contribute to the flow of energy.”
it did absolutely nothing for my depression. it attracted zero money or luck or good fortune and got zero energy flowing. but i did learn how to clean a toilet and on the days i get nothing else done and my house is a total disaster, the toilet is clean. i don't feel stressed if someone drops by, because the toilet is clean!
i mean, that's something.
i hope you have something that you can get done every day, not matter how shitty you feel.
cheers,
m
bonus material: just in case you were wondering, this is how i clean a toilet (i have 4 in my house):
apply toilet bowl cleaner. allow to sit for 5 minutes.
spray product on tank and seat of toilet. allow to sit for 1 minute (too much longer and the product will evaporate, in my experience).
with a rag or paper towel (atrocious for the environment but i'm not cleaning rags), folded in four, start from the top of the toilet and move down in an s motion across all surfaces. as one quadrant gets dirty, refold and use new part of rag/paper towel. throw away paper towel if you hate the environment like me and use paper towels.
with a toilet brush, start at the rim and move downward in circular motions. clean the center last.
spray product on the brush and close lid on top, allowing brush to dry over toilet bowl (learned this last and wish i’d learned earlier 😬)
