How Can We Be Better Than Japan’s Warm Seated Toilets?
“What is wrong?” is not a rhetorical question. I’m guessing we need to read this aloud once more, so I’ll say it again. “What is wrong” is not a rhetorical question. If we can’t already tell, it is a question that is supposed to elicit a prompt for us to act on. It may be a simple gesture of acknowledgement or a fix that we may have neglected for an extended period of time. Either way, if something is wrong, we have to make it right. As much as I would like to think that this isn’t the difficult part for most parts of life, it appears that we only rectify our mistakes when it is almost too late. At the very least, the situation, no matter how infinitesimally small, will eventually get straighten out. The real challenge is when no one questions what is wrong, and stifles the exponent growth of what I term as “the things we don’t need to do.”
This is the segment where we feel hints of guilty with undertones of lying.
We often cling onto our conventional work, be it in a personal or professional context, like a security blanket, often out of fear rather than necessity, even when we can do more. We seek for seal of approval, from familiar people around us to strangers even, to colour our opinion. But the truth remains before our eyes. We recognise that doing a little something more brings about disproportionate amount of goodness, but as it falls under the list of what we categorise as “things we don’t need to do”, we simply delegate it to faith, luck or a random someone/competitor. After all, we don’t have time to stroke someone else’s ego, isn’t it?
The extra mile is exactly what separates a mother’s love from the incredible invention of warm seated toilets in Japan.
Tiny gap; but it is that gap that makes a whole lot of difference. There is no need for McDonald’s to sneak in a couple of crispy curly fries in your normal fries order. But they can, and if they do, it makes you feel like a winner instantly. There is no need for MosBurger to give you more milk capsules when you order milk tea. But they can, and if they do, you emerge victorious with the ultimate control of how close you are to diabetes. There are many things we don’t need to do, but if we do it, it will be like that mini-cherry on top of the regular cherry on top of our sundae of celebration/disappointment. There is no need for a musical encore, but it just feels so damn right to have a couple of songs sneaked in. This is how we create a earworm. This is how we leave an impact, one unnecessary step at a time.
