Funny how an incidental comment can spark a thought. I was reading through Bing’s blog, The not so secret diary of Bing (aged 23), and he made a passing mention of the fact that “due to disposable nappies being so comfortable the average age of toilet training has increased from 2, to 3- 3.5 years.” (You might call them diapers instad of nappies.)
Imagine that. Babies are spending an extra one to one and a half years in nappies because they’ve been made more comfortable. We might wonder why would they put up with all that extra mess and having to be changed all the time. Why would a child want to stay in that kind of filth when a little extra effort would free them of all that mess?
That started me thinking about us adults. While hopefully we’re all toilet trained, we can still identify with the situation. So often we’re happy to sit around in our own filth and stench and we convince ourselves that it’s comfortable. We stay in bad situations way longer than we should because we find it easier than putting in the effort it takes to make a change. Sometimes we’re scared to take the steps we need to take and we convince ourselves that it’s OK to maintain the status quo. The longer we leave it the more paralysed we become.
When we finally make the move and sort things out we find it to be such a relief and we wonder why we put up with sitting in our own mess for so long. Just like the nappy manufacturers we devise ways to make something that should make us uncomfortable, which prompts us to action, into something that fits us so well that we sit there ignoring the filth and the stench.
Posted by Rodney Olsen
Technorati Tags: Nappy – Diaper – Life Change
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Hey, I never expected that to come out of that interesting comment. That’s really cool.
Surprisingly I have thought a fair amount about this recently, as child #3 moves on to turning 3 years old and she’s showing absolutely no inclination to get potty trained. I think it’s just so much easier for her to let us do the work of taking care of her bodily waste; she’s getting great service, and who would want to give that up? So, to your general idea, I think it’s not just that people are afraid of change or paralyzed; I think it’s that our society and other people often reward us for not changing. We make it easy for each other not to grow up.
Good thoughts.
It reminds me of how Paul talks about our consciences being seared. Things that used to make us feel bad, just don’t bother us anymore.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I?
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
– Robert Frost
Nobody wants to do it the hard way and we’re no longer encouraged to do so. We live in a society with a generation that had to struggle for everything and they in turn wanted to give their kids everything they never had. They just forgot to give them all the good things they did have.
Great analogy.