The laundry detergent commercial that’s been running lately has this tag, “Remember the meal, not the stain.”

They show a family eating hot dogs.

“Remember the meal”?

Hot dogs?

Really?

Regarding the stain, I can see why people wouldn’t want to remember stains! After all, if my experience with stains, marks, and accidents is any indication of what most people experience, the experience of creating a stain is itself a stain. It’s always negative, full of reproach and hostility, sometimes even violence.

However, there is another way to look upon stains. In one of his recent podcasts (I think it was a parenting podcast), Stef talks about a coffee stain on the carpet. But when he sees it, he doesn’t see a stain because that was made the night he and his wife brought their daughter home from the hospital for the first time. He sees that night, with all of the joys and challenges it evokes, and the memory of his daughter at that time.

Having that sort of perspective does take a lot of self-work in order to understand your experience of stains and–if necessary or possible–surpass that experience.

But of course, it’s not required–nothing is.

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