Unlike only a few decades ago; when we used to take time to cook before we ate, or schedule a meeting at a later date to discuss items on an agenda, or wait for a letter in the mail, or take an appliance to a repair shop and wait for it to be fixed, or take time to shop in stores to find what we needed, or even spend time in bed recovering from an accident or illness, today, it seems we want everything “NOW”.
Order in, meet in a digital room on the computer, send an email and expect an instant reply, order a new replacement appliance and have it delivered right away, expect more from drugs to fix us immediately. It is a different time and a different way of doing things.
Clean the boats
Just this morning, I was about to clean the shower. I normally spray the enclosure, then scrub with a brush; but, something stopped me today. All of a sudden, I remembered a conversation I had with a representative of one of the boat manufacturers at the Toronto Boat Show, years ago. He and others were preparing all the boats during set-up before the Show opened. All the boats had to be “shiny and new”; but, they had highway dirt from the delivery to the Show, as well as new labels that were stuck hard to the fiberglass surfaces and all sorts of other “stuff” that had to come off.
I was curious to learn what they used to strip off all that dirt, labels and other sticky “stuff”. His answer came back ringing in my head this morning. He said “the most important ingredient in any cleaner is time. Spray it on and leave it for 20 minutes. Then clean it off”.
That was valuable advice that I used for the longest time, then I guess I forgot about it and fell into the trap of expecting the products to work immediately and scrubbing harder and harder.
This morning, I went back in time and sprayed my environmentally friendly cleaner on and left it for 20 minutes. When I came back and scrubbed with my brush, it took almost no effort and much less time to clean the shower as I did decades ago.
I guess the lesson learned here is patience. Don’t expect everything to happen instantly and don’t get caught up in all the “Gotta have it NOW” hype.
There is a better way, we just have to make time work for us. In this case, use time to clean.
See also: Too many cleaners
