This is a well known saying often flouted in business circles to encourage staff to take responsibility for maintaining a safe work environment as a team unit.
In essence, its literal interpretation is that, if you see milk spilled on the floor, don't merely pass over it and leave it to be cleaned up by the next person that passes it, as their time may be as valuable as yours and, worse still, they may not see it so slip and hurt themselves (something which may if you stop and think about it cause you considerably more stress in the long term!).
The same can apply to a lot of other life situations when we see an issue that clearly needs addressing or fixing and we potentially have the power to do so with minimal effort, but instead decide to swerve the matter.
Now there are sometimes very good reasons for us, after consideration, not to become embroiled in a situation - see our earlier post entitled "Break Time Quickie - Don’t try to be a Police Chief!" for a discussion of this.
But while common sense dictates that it wouldn't take much of our time or effort to 'clear up the milk', still we often don't.
This may be through laziness, lack of energy, existing high levels of stress or because we feel we simply already have "too much on our plate", so consider we have the 'right' to leave it to the next person.
However, what if the next person feels the same way, and so on and so forth. . . . ?
We had a couple of real time examples of this pop up during the most recent of our "State of the Nation" discussions (this being a regular review we have of our relationship to establish satisfaction versus expectation).
MikeyM™ raised with LouLoU™ that she had rather an annoying habit of disposing of the carrier bag we place on a kitchen cupboard handle as a refuse holder when full, but not replacing the carrier bag with an empty one, meaning the intended task was incomplete and its completion was left to MikeyM™.
LouLoU™ countered (as is often refreshingly the case) with the fact that MikeyM™ had the absolutely infuriating habit of stepping over washing on the floor clearly waiting to be put in the washer in replacement of the last load.
We learned from comparing notes that it is imperative not to underestimate how much things like this can rankle!
But what was most odd about these real time examples is that neither of us were consciously aware of our failures (nor how much they polarised the other, for that matter 🙉🤭).
And that for us is the key point, here.
To take responsibility for "clearing up milk" on the floor rather leaving it to the next person and risking injury, we need to establish a wider awareness of the interests and wellbeing of others rather than focusing on self - we need to develop more 'empathy''. This important topic is covered in further detail in our previous post entited "Stressbusting™ Lessons from Finland - “The Happiest Nation on Earth".
Then the more people who have empathy - that is the ability to imagine how others might feel or be affected by events and actions around them - the more secure, balanced, collegiate and indeed content a home, business or other organisation becomes overall.
In our earlier post entitled "Lessons in Life & Stress to be Learned from the Air France Flight 4590 Tragedy", we give an illustration of the devastating consequences that can result from a series of people 'stepping over the milk' on the same assumption that nobody would be hurt by their one off failures, because all those failures ultimately mounted up to create a terrible tragedy with huge loss of lives.
So think out the box, take a broader view of responsibility and please, please, please don't just step over that milk!!!
Lots of Safe & Empathetic Love
MikeyM™&LouLoU™
🤗😚👏💙💜❤💯