Ye gushing taps of life (and two instructional methods on how to stem ye algid blubbering spurts)

Some people get rid of their bad ju-ju by acquiring more stuff. It's a simple kind of logic: get more of the stuff you like, and then in comparison the stuff you don't like seems smaller. If the things you don't like were significant enough in the first place that you were compelled to bury them in possessions or relationships, they seem unlikely to diminish through neglect - and once those transitory things expire you're left with the same amount of badness that you had at the start.

The shower is perhaps the Jannah of the common household. The receptacle of purification, characterised by that feeling of comfort induced by a hail of scalding jets of water pelting your naked flesh. Nothing else so divine in the house. Suppose that whilst you are singing hymns of praise in the heavenly acoustics of the bathroom your shower is feeling a little too lukewarm, there are two options.

Some people turn the hot tap up.

Some people turn the cold tap down.

And so it is with other non-naked, non-bathroom related situations in life. You can either pretend to get rid of what you don't want by drowning it in more stuff (which expends more energy), or you can get rid of what you don't want by actually... getting rid of it.

This is just the first step in having some autonomy over what you want and need, but it's a really big step, like a desert steppe. Large quantities of courage and faith must be mustered to expunge some of the things you don't need which may at times include family, friends, lovers, beliefs and opinions, religions, addictions etc...

Extolment passing through lips

Of one on whom hot water drips

On the instinctual impulse to evade advice

When someone gives me good advice it's as though I'm being swaddled in a layer of bubble wrap, and the fear of being ossified in that restful, semi-transparent membrane horrifies me so, that my gut reaction is to thrash about and defy any well-intentioned guidance.

But often, for ettiquettes sake, I bow in thanks and hobble off to privately extricate myself out of their consultation and opinions.

Even when the advisor is experienced and speaks with generosity and listens with care, it's not possible to just hold out my arms and take the advice home and eat it like a takeaway meal.
No. Instead I need to go to the shops, buy the ingredients and try over and over to create that perfect flavour myself. 

Acquiescence is the softening of your will.

Urn of bubble wrap!

Enfeebling cocoon!

The final resting place of my initiative!