Best Advice Ever: Buy Premium Toilet Paper
I had my first encounter with one of plumbing’s greatest inventions while in the Middle East, a bidet. It’s a thing of beauty. My best advice – if you haven’t tried one – is do it ASAP.
I’m pretty sure the condos in heaven have bidets.
On that same trip I experienced toilet paper from hell. The proprietors of the hotel were blinded by the devil into believing 80 grit sandpaper was toilet tissue.
Satan loves it when the nether regions burn.
Best advice ever: Buy premium toilet paper.
Find ways to enjoy discomforting inevitabilities. While you live you will eat, drink, and eliminate. You’ll interact with people, build relationships, face challenges, and solve problems all your life.
Stop enduring discomforting inevitabilities. Work to make them less discomforting.
Best advice practice: uncover tiny irritations.
#1. Notice daily irritations.
Don’t endure experiences that return day after day.
#2. Keep an irritation journal for a week.
Four times a day, record stressors, small irritations, and frustrations. Nothing is too small if it happens repeatedly. Tiny irritations become infections.
#3. Sort your irritation list.
- Which 3 items are most painful?
- Which 3 items occur most frequently, even if they aren’t the most painful?
#4. Choose one irritation to make less painful.
Notice if you hate getting up every morning. Adopt practices to make mornings more enjoyable.
Consider an unavoidable relationship that drives you nuts. You can’t eradicate them.
- Make it a personal challenge to get along with your irritant. Get to know them.
- Accept them as jerk-holes and be happy anyway. “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” Maya Angelou
- Notice if you’re trying to change them. If you are, focus on changing yourself.
- Explore the unlikely possibility that you contribute to the problem.
What is your best advice?
What’s the best advice you ever received?
Still curious:
4 Ways to Move Through Pain to Fulfillment
Learn to Sit with Discomfort in Your Life
At a previous workplace, they were renowned for buying “John Wayne” branded toilet paper – it’s rough, it’s tough and it doesn’t take c*** off anyone. I think the main market rival is the “Chuck Norris” brand.
And you’re right – the cost/benefit of stuff like this (notepads that don’t wrinkle due to the humidity in the office, ballpoint pens that write without blots…) really stacks up. The reduction in stress and friction lets people focus on things that matter.
Thanks Mitch. You’re practical explanation of cost/benefit expands my thinking on this issues. I can see where large organizations would struggle with a few extra cents to buy a better quality product. Everything is about saving a few cents. Perhaps it’s cheaper to buy better quality because low quality products cost more to use and wear out sooner.
Always buy 2-ply toilet paper!
The toilet paper I mention in this post was 1-ply. Proves your point!
Thanks, Dan! The best advise I have received over the years. No matter where you are professionally, always have two doors available to you in case life takes an unexpected turn. Also, to never slam a door, your may want/need to go back through it.
That’s good advice. I gave a talk to a high school graduation one time. I brought in a sample window from the local lumber yard. Make decisions that open windows. Yes, we have to close windows, or doors, but an open window is filled with new possibility.
Like shoes and mattresses, toilet paper is something you can’t go cheap when purchasing. It affects the quality of your life.
Also, if you want an other-worldly restroom experience, try visiting Japan. You will be treated to a heated seat, washed, and dried.
Wow, I’m booking my flight! Thanks Chris.
….or, buy sustainable toilet paper. Choose an option that not only is good for you, but good for others, too. Our choices can have an impact beyond our immediate group, both literally and figuratively.
Thanks for expanding the conversation, CAB.
I have fond memories of collecting (unused) toilet paper samples while traveling in Europe as a child. My favorite was the wax paper provided in a box claiming that the company held a Royal Warrant from the Queen. Ah, the images that invoked.
I do love the quote: If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.
In some ways you don’t need much more in life than that advice. Most likely you’ll find there is something that you can do: carry a roll of toilet paper with you or be grateful you aren’t using Sear Roebuck catalog pages in an outhouse in an Alaskan winter or start a company that meets a need or smile and write a blog post about it.
And if none of those work, Will your life be better banging your head against that wall?
Wonderful and a bit quirky, Elizabeth. You brought back memories of the Sears Roebuck catalog in my memory. Glossy pages! Ugh!
There’s no way I could make the time nor incentive to keep an irritation journal – ever – but I like the idea. I encounter a lot of (people) irritants during the day and make mental notes, ignore or address, and move on. I think logging and choosing may be more counter-productive for me and tend to bring more attention to the matter. than it deserves Good post. Thanks, Dan.
For 35+ years of ministry I’ve told the custodian, the deacons, the treasurer… “We’re not buying 1 ply!” Our church will have quality toilet in all the restrooms, absolutely! We’ll make a good impression on our guests, and our regular (pun intended) members will appreciate it. Quality TP is worth the $100 more a year it might cost.