Spider in the Tub

The other day, I found a lone spider sitting in the bathtub in my back bathroom. Generally, my feelings toward spiders are very benign, but my husband harbors an intense phobia of the little fellas. I didn't have the energy/desire to chase the thing, scoop it up, and relocate it to my garden, so instead I turned on the spigot, and down went my little trouble down the drain.
I don't mourn the small loss and I have no guilt over it, but I did find myself making a most interesting analogy. Does a spider belong in a bathtub? I suppose if it felt there were enough bugs living in the near vicinity, it may have "thought" (since I don't know about the mental gyrations of arachnids) that a tub is a nice place to make a web. But there was no insects or web there, and - with my human eyes - I could not see one in progress either. So the spider had no place in my bathtub, and it was not in a location where it could do what it does best.
Are we like spiders? Are we doing the good things that are the point of our living, or are we "hanging out" where we have no place to be? And, do we notice the incipient danger when we are "out of place"?
I'm sure my tub was a pleasant place, porcelain, smooth and cool to the touch. But, it held an element of danger that did not - could not - occur to the spider. When we are doing things that detract from living up to our potential and making the world a better place in our small sphere, we don't realize that it is hazardous. Outside of our natures lies catastrophe when situations spiral out of our control.
It is not to say that someone couldn't come along and knock us off of our web when we are busily spinning, or that our latest trip to the bathtub was absolutely uneventful, but our chances for disaster escalate when we take it into our hands to do and be where we should not. It is a gamble each time we are away from the safety of our web and our duty.
Our comfortable web gets tired-looking and ordinary quickly, I know. The bathtub is so enticing. We cannot live awry from our paths without cost. Go to the tub today, some may say, you will be okay. But then, perhaps someone may turn on the spigot, and then you are lost. The web is not perfect and not without some risk, but life is like that. Yet, staying within the web, we know who and what we are and what we are to do, and those lines that hold it together give us opportunity to move, avoid, and - if needed - escape. It is our natural habitat and its familiarity brings us peace and security; something you cannot get from that unknown, slippery tub.
What about fun? So many "spiders" ask far too often about entertaining, "getting away," but there are safe places for a spider to retreat, gardens, dark corners, what have you. You have to think, in your pursuit of leisure to a) not seek it beyond renewal and refreshing, and b) to seek it in safe places. Nothing ruins a vacation faster than a tragedy and, in nature, I see no mice taking a holiday in a cat's bed, no fish partying in a shark's mouth, and no antelope jumping around a pride of hungry lions. Like the Country Mouse said to her City cousin, "Better crumbs in peace than riches in fear."