I've never been a janitor in my life and I most likely never shall, but I have always found janitors rather fascinating. Cleaning up other people's messes and doing the nitty gritty of things; I find it interesting that people would choose to do such a job for living.

Janitors may not always enjoy what they do but they certainly tend to have a much higher sense of responsibility than the rest of us college kids. It's not their messes they clean but someone else's. In order to keep a clean, safe and healthy work or learning place, janitors know that someone has to take responsibility for the mess, even if it means doing taking upon themselves the task that another should have handled. I'm thankful for janitors and what they do to keep our learning and hangout areas of choice clean for the kids who can't seem to pick up a dirty plate themselves.

One day, as I was brushing my teeth in the college communal bathroom in the wee hours of the early morning, a janitor unexpectedly entered and cleaned the restroom, washing, wiping and detoxing every stain, stench and streak that had been caused the night before. As I was looking at him through the mirror, I felt very sorry for him that he has a job that means taking responsibility for a mess that someone's else should have learned how to clean themselves, but I also couldn't help but think "I am truly blessed, I am truly blessed."

You see, janitors-- you see them everyday but probably don't always acknowledge their importance in your life. We students, and even those who work in offices, often take janitors and all the work they do for us for granted. How many of us have dropped a piece of trash on the way to class or on the way to a meeting and think, "No matter, the janitor will get it." How many of us have been enraged that our personal trash bins are not emptied the next morning because the janitor didn't "do their job" and empty it? In reality folks, it's your job to take care of your own messes. But what about janitors? As a people whose job it is to clean up the messes of others, do they bless us or do they enable us? Perhaps it's time that we learn that janitors are actually our friends.

Janitors are people who clean up the mess that we have created. We all have our own individual stains or marks that we don't see or choose not to take responsibility for until someone cleans it up.

In the real world, we are not able to do live of lives alone, it takes people to gradually help us throughout the day, so we can see what we have done wrong and learn from it. Do editors enable us because they fix our mistakes? No, they teach us how to be better writers. Janitors don't enforce messy behavior, they set an example for each and every one of us should take care of the places around us. We need people that are like janitors, people that will always be there to pick up after us, even if sometimes they don't feel like it, because ultimately it shows us what it means to be a responsible and successful adult.

Think about what would happen if no one could or would pick up your mess or edit your mistakes?

I actually know a few people that took jobs as janitors and though they could tell you a few nasty stories from their time, they also said that being a janitor taught them that no matter how messy or cluttered a place could seem, it could always be cleaned and there will always be places ready to be cleaned the next day.

I'm blessed to know that there is a person, sometimes multiple people, who is there to clean any mess that I will have. Like the janitor in my restroom, there is someone there for you cleaning up your mess when you least expect it, and as they clean and fix your mistakes, watch them. They are more than a janitor, they are an example to be learned from. In a world where everyone wants the easy way, where everyone expects things to be done for them, look at the janitor. They represent the best of us.