Design Flaw.

It’s funny what events in life lead to a lesson learned. Today’s lesson comes from a sink.

My father’s kitchen sink has a design flaw. Whether the sink was made this way accidentally or if it was done so for style is of little consequence to this story—what is of consequence is that it’s completely flat. There is no decline that guides the water into the center of the sink where the drain is located. Now you may be thinking, “Silly Mingo that’s no big deal, is it?” And I wouldn’t blame you for that but, for someone like myself who drinks coffee and eats oatmeal on the regular it becomes quite the task to get all the coffee grounds and oatmeal pieces into the drain when I am doing the dishes. So, what I typically do is grab the hand-held hose and spray the particles of food and coffee in a circular pattern until all of it is moving in the same direction. Kind of like when we were kids and got into the above-ground pool and walked around and around to create a “whirlpool”. Once it was all going the same way I would come at it from an angle in an attempt to spray the particles into the drain. This is a skill. Sometimes I would switch up my methods and techniques by pushing everything into a corner and then moving it into the center from there, however the end goal was always the same: how do I most efficiently get all the food particles into the drain in the least amount of time? To my utter dismay, no matter how hard I tried nor how many times I switched up my method of spaying, there would always be left over stragglers—a piece would be too small and float off in an unwanted direction, or the natural current would simply take a piece away for a ride. This frustrated me to no end. If my methods failed for long enough I would be forced to roll up my sleeves and use my hand as a levee, guiding the pieces directly into the drain, and sometimes I would even have to scoop up bits altogether. Every now and then my patience would get the best of me and I would have to walk away and come back later when I was calmer. This went on for quite some time.

I suggested to my Dad one day that he might buy a new sink. “The design flaw is serious and unfixable”, I would say to him, “replacing the sink is the only option”. He would not hear of it. After a couple of neglectful days of buildup, I approached my enemy, the sink. I took all the dishes and silverware and pots and pans out of the sink and put them into the dishwasher so that all that was left was scattered coffee grounds and oatmeal and some peanut-butter chunks. I took a deep breath, grabbed the hand-held hose and began my usual method of clean up. I circled all the particles into a pattern and tried coming at it from many different angles and after several minutes and to my distress, but not my surprise, the sink was still a mess. I might add that I was attempting to do this during a commercial break and so time was not on my side, however, on this particular occasion there were a few beans in the sink. My dad made beans the night before, they were delicious. I found myself looking down at one of the beans and thinking, falling into a daydream, watching the water in the sink drift lightly with the current I had created. I thought to myself, “let’s just get that one bean into the drain.” Without thinking about water current or flow techniques or water temperature (which sometimes would dissolve very small pieces of oatmeal if hot enough), and by focusing solely on the bean I was able to get it into the drain easily. I set my sights on another bean and did the same thing, and then another and another. What happened was very interesting to me. Even though all my efforts were focused on getting only one bean into the drain at a time I would unintentionally drag a few bits and pieces of oatmeal and coffee grounds in as well. I continued this method of getting one focused piece into the drain at a time until there was nothing left. As a result, I managed to clean the sink in less time and there was never a point that I felt defeated or a lack of concentration for that matter. I decided after that morning to take this lesson I had learned from my former enemy the sink, and apply it to my every day.

Doing one thing at a time or aiming for one goal at a time with all your concentration and thought and with good action will not only result in that singular outcome being accomplished with a higher percentage of success and quality than if multi-tasked, but in doing things in this way, that singular act will result in other tangent accomplishments. By that I mean there are no acts or outcomes that stand alone, detached from all other forces. There is always cause and effect. I concentrate more on single pieces of food when cleaning the dishes and by no mere coincidence do my meditations improve. An athlete concentrates on being able to isolate single muscles to relax and contract and his performance on the field as a whole improves. A student dedicates her time to studying prefixes and suffixes in Latin and her grasp of language at large improves. It’s hard to understand how truly everything is connected in this life, and while I will never quite look at beans the same way I will try to have more focus in my life, for I know not what I may miss if otherwise.

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”

Marcus Aurelius

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