TO PISS OR SERVE THE WORLD

 Okay, serve the world is partly clickbait. The situation I command you to picture is one where you’re sitting with a full bladder and your mind is screaming Release! Release! In my defence ‘the world’ certainly shrinks to the vicinity around the nearest toilet at this point, and everything-- the deadline for the project application, how popular you are in your friend circle, the quintessential question of what exactly you want to do with your life, much less the war in the faraway country, all fade into vapour, and you attain a deep mindfulness of the present moment that Alan Watts or Baba Ramdev would’ve been proud of. You call out the situation to your friends, go take a piss in all haste, and there’s a deep peace and tranquillity to the world now.

Happens occasionally huh? But what’s pure chaos is when the notification arrives at the most unfortunate moments: You’re in a movie theatre, farthest seat from the aisle. Or you’re on a bus full of people you don’t know and the next stop is likely after two hours.

The first reaction is to deny it. The notification from the piss department is a false alarm, you’ll just ignore it. Oh no, but the department is quick to get pissed off, they start working double-time (“oh, you think we’re messing around huh?!”) and your bladder is fit to burst in minutes now it seems.

Here reality hits: you have two choices. Hold it in or inconvenience all these strangers. You look around and see how bewitched by the movie all these people next to you are, you’ll be breaking their hearts requesting them to shuffle back their legs and let you pass. On the bus you notice the sweaty middle-aged man who’s certainly late for his job and is super worried if his boss will shout at him. You suddenly feel so altruistic and considerate. You choose to sacrifice your needs for the service of this gentlefolk. Love your neighbour, right?

Now your brain kicks on this yes/no debate:

That guy looks really busy, he’ll shout at you. Mom used to say holding it in can damage your bladder or some shit. Hold it in, this can be a test of your willpower. Be a brave man and go, stand up for something for once in your life you coward. All these people watching the movie, you’ll spoil their fun. You can’t hold it in anymore!

The debate continues in much fervour, and finally you yield. You get up and set out on your quest like there’s no tomorrow. The gentlefolk sitting next to you you were so hesitant to trouble, well now you’re stepping on all their toes as you slide past them and can’t even think of saying sorry. All your goodness dies away, and with pure selfish zest you slide past them.             

Point is, you can get thrown into this situation anytime. You can spend all your life trying to never lock horns with anyone and always be the nice guy. That's dumb. The ‘hurt no fly’ idealism is not the practical way to go about life, you’ll have to inconvenience people along the course of your life. The world is ingeniously designed to put you on the spot at times, it ain’t personal, just how we geniuses designed it.

So understand that you’ll have to become a dick at times-  there will turn up situations when you might have to stop a bus full of people or cut off a guy mid-conversation for personal reasons, it’s okay.

Instead of keeping your head down and living a life without conflict, get better at the art of genuinely apologising to people you inconvenience. Trust that people will understand, that it ain’t likely that they’ll carry a personal vendetta against you forever. You’re surely gonna end up in some emergency someday. The best move is to change your mindset from the non-confronter to the genuinely sorry guy, to realise that they too can end up in the same stand-off and that you’ll most likely let it slide if they’re the ones stepping on you.

It’s ok to annoy people sometimes. Just work on that genuine heartfelt apology, at least for the sake of your weak mortal bladders, bwahaha...