That is my take on Hamlet’s question “-To be or not to be” in Shakespeare’s drama. I have been philosophising around that question.
Many times during my life I have wished to be someone else. Not so much in recent times as I have noticed that, someone else has got problems of grand proportions. He/she has great expectations on him/her to deliver. But at the same time, he/she seems to be inefficient to the point that you would suspect pure laziness. Or possibly so underpaid and under stimulated that he/she has lost motivation completely. Let me clarify and illustrate with these pictures.
These pictures gives just a few examples of what someone else is expected to do: Change the toilet paper roll, put away the empty milk carton in the recycling bin, put the dirty glass in the dishwasher and wash the saucepan. All extremely ungratifying tasks, which someone else is not going to notice that someone else has done, were someone else to fix them. The most interesting about someone else is that many feel as though they are this someone else, who feels the expectations of delivery vibrating in the air. This in turn makes these someone very frustrated, as someone is not at all motivated to deal with what someone else has ignored and left behind. And so it begins…
Someone leaves the empty roll and expects (perhaps) that someone else is going to change it for a new. Another (or possibly the same) someone leaves the empty milk carton hoping that someone else is going to want to put I away in the recycling bin. The same goes for the dirty glass and saucepan, left to their fate by someone with the expectation of someone else’s contribution.
The funny thing with our household is that we all know exactly who lives in our home, and that someone else is not part of our household. No one has seen someone else mucking about and spill things around. But just the same, whenever I (and not someone else) put the question, to the rest of the household, who left the empty roll, I always get the answer that someone else has done it. I am quite sure someone else is not me, but the others seem to be just as convinced of their innocence. A very strange phenomenon indeed. In all honesty, I am not surprised that someone else has got fed up considering the sort of tasks someone has not cared to deal with. At the same time I have this unpleasant suspicion that someone in the household expects me to be someone else, when someone else is not up for the job, but I have a full job just to be me.
The phenomenon is spreading out of the home sphere to the workplace. Where someone else is not hired as a fixer, but still is expected to wipe up coffee droppings left by someone, taking up food left-overs from the sink, remove all traces of someone’s visit at the loo or change the garbage can when someone has filled it with garbage etc. The list is endless. And it does not stop there, it is the same out there IRL. Someone drops a wrapping of a mars bar – oh, let someone else pick it up. Someone does not have the time or energy to clean the bridle for the horse he/she rode – someone else can do it when they are going to use it…
This may
seem trivial, but the behaviour of someone who expects someone else to do what
someone could not be bothered to do, is very precarious. It is a sign of an
inability to take responsibility for him/her self and his/her actions. E g
someone does not care to sort his/her garbage to minimise the impact on the
environment – someone else can fix it. Someone wants what someone else got but
cannot afford it and gets into a debt trap – someone else have to step in and
sort out the mess. Someone is getting sick by his/her lifestyle but is not
willing to change anything – still expects someone else to go in and perform a
miracle and so on.
However, I do understand. Neither do I find it easy to me myself and in myself
100 percent of the time. Nowadays however, I am happy to ask someone else for
help if I need it, and I am just as happy to help someone else if I can. But as
a today completely sober sugar junkie I really do not want someone else to take
over my life and let the world, when my time on this earth is over, bury
someone else.
Let no one hijack your holidays no matter what happens. Eat, drink, feel and do for your own sake, not for someone else’s. Let the old year end the way you want the new year to become.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!