The foam that stopped the water
I almost threw it away.
For months, I had a beautiful glass water dispenser sitting in my refrigerator. Every time I tried to use it, the spigot barely worked. The water would trickle out or stop completely.
I assumed it was poorly made. I tried everything I could think of. I even considered replacing it with a plastic one. Eventually, I accepted that maybe I had simply bought a defective product. Then one day, I noticed something interesting. With the lid removed, the water flowed perfectly. That didn’t make sense. Surely the manufacturer didn’t design a dispenser that only works without its lid. So instead of concluding it was broken, I asked a different question: What am I missing?
Inside the lid was a white foam disk. I had always assumed it belonged there because it came with the dispenser. But I removed it anyway. Instantly, everything worked. The dispenser wasn’t broken. The foam had simply been there to protect it during shipping. It was never meant to remain there once the product was in use. Something designed for one season had quietly become an obstacle in another.
Life has a way of doing the same thing. We hold onto assumptions, habits, fears, routines, and beliefs because they’ve always been there. We stop questioning them simply because they feel familiar. Then one day, we wonder why nothing seems to flow. We assume the problem is our career. Our relationships. Our purpose. Our dreams.
Sometimes we even begin replacing things that were never broken. But every now and then, wisdom invites us to ask a different question: What have I accepted as normal that was never meant to stay?
Not every problem requires replacing the entire system. Sometimes the greatest breakthrough comes from questioning the one thing you’ve never thought to remove. The water was never the problem. The dispenser was never the problem. The obstacle was something I assumed belonged there.
How often do we do the same with our own lives?
By H. N. Ako
The water dispenser
The white foam found in the lid
