A visit to the toilet at your grandmothers house used to bring some wisdom in the old days. A small tile with little floral decorations could be food for thought. Quotes like “There’s no place like home” or some other famous words would be there for you education.
Those were the the predecessors of ” the rules”
Nowadays there’s no house where you won’t find ’the rules’. Usually on a wooden board with text starting like: “In this house..”, “In our family…” or even “On this toilet.. “.
Where people used to place Buddha statutes in the living room, bedroom, hall or garden, for bringing comfort and peace… These days people are putting up ‘rules’!
Are we starting to re-educate ourselves? It does seem that way. I’m happy to see that it’s done in a loving and funny way. The rules name the things that are valuable. Things we may forget in the busy day to day routine. A sign with ‘rules’ is a nice reminder to think about those valuable things. That’s probably the reason why our grandparents placed them on the toilet, the place where there is some time to think about things.
In my house I’ve got the less-is-more-version of the toilet quotes. The wall sticker! Every store in my country has them these days. I prefer the less common ones in combination with the Buddha statue for inner peace.
The rules are a positive development. You pass the words several times a day and you will read the words sometimes. By repeating the words, they will be stored in your brain and after a while they will (hopefully) become a conviction. I truly hope people place the rules not just because they liked the decorations or the wood.. the text must have been appealing to them.
Rules are meant to be broken, so I’m curious as to what will come next to keep us positive in life. After some time things will become fashionable again, so maybe the old quotes from our grandparents will be combined with the wood and will be HOT in 2020.
