"Kids these days"-years-old.
Yes, we have a lot of thoughts on what's wrong with the world, but instead of just griping about them to each other, this week we're happy to present our ideas on what we could all do to make the world better.
His Take:
Fixing the world seems hard, but I have it nailed down to just 4 easy steps. Why 4? 'Cause that’s the number that Sue told me I had. Challenge accepted!!
#1)Social Media Wipeout-
Social Media is VERY useful. You can catch up with old friends or new friends, you can see what’s going on in their lives, you can check out movie or book reviews from people that aren’t “professional” reviewers. The possibilities are endless. The problem is..the possibilities are endless. For every person that says “Hey, that’s a great new car you got!” there’s one that says “I can’t believe you bought that piece of dogshit!”. Unfortunately, that’s just the beginning. I’m not even going to go any further, because I could go on ALL DAY about this subject, and just thinking about it has got me hot already. Here’s my point. Yes, people would be outraged if this were to happen, but people are going to be outraged no matter what happens. Most of the outraged people would be mad because they couldn’t tell total strangers how stupid they are. They’d be upset because, for once, their words and actions would have consequences. People might choose their words a little more carefully if that were to happen.
#2)Everybody Works!!
While employment is awesome, I’m talking about a different kind of work. Exercise. I don’t have to list all the health benefits here, we all know that it’s good for us. But a lot of people think you have to have an expensive gym membership or a super pricey home weight set to burn some calories to “exercise”. It’s not that complicated or involved. A 30 minute walk three or four times a week is all you need. It not only helps you get in better physical shape, it also helps your brain fight depression and other things. I truly think we’d be a much better society if we were all a lot more healthier. Just think, you’d be able to do a lot more, live a lot longer, and have a better quality of life as well as knocking out a bunch of those sucky doctors appointments.
#3)Get excited again!
Remember when you were a kid and you used to get off the bus and you would RUN to your house? Or you’d RUN to your friends house to play? When was the last time you RAN anywhere? Maybe not physically. But mentally or spiritually. When was the last time you were so excited to see someone that you couldn’t wait? To be somewhere? To do something? Maybe it’s time you let yourself go a little bit and let yourself get excited to see your sister, brother, mom, dad, kids friends, or whomever. Nobody’s gonna think you’re weird for having a good time. In fact, a lot of times they’ll be envious.
#4)Be a good neighbor.
Growing up, the people in my neighborhood were like a second family to me. Your mom could send you over to the neighbors to borrow a couple of eggs, or some milk, or whatever you needed. People would walk over to your house and stop by for a visit just to see what was new. And they’d bring something. Because that’s what guests do. They’d look after your dog or cat when you went out of town, they’d invite you over to have dinner, they would neighbor. Now, when you’re doorbell rings, you either grab a baseball bat or run and hide. In short, we used to look out for each other. We don’t do that anymore. Everybody’s too wrapped up in their own lives to say hi to the people next door, let alone get to know them. Make time to get to know your neighborhood and the people in it.
-Look, I know accomplishing these 4 things won’t turn this world into a perfect place. I don’t even know if that could be done. But I’m gonna do everything in my power to make it better. Everything in this writing could be boiled down to four simple words that would go a long ways to making this world a better place: Don’t be a prick. Her Take:
Listen, I was going to write this coy little intro where I said something like ‘I don’t want you to think that I THINK that it’s easy to fix the world.’ but that would be a lie. And I don’t lie to you. In reality, I DO think fixing the world would be easy, we’d just all have to be working on it at the same time.
You’re right, that’s the tough part, or at least tedious. It would take every one of us to start something and then other people to join in and then keep joining in until everybody is on the same page. I mean, it SOUNDS like a lot but, you know, everybody was singing ‘Despicito’ under their breath for a while and, like, A LOT OF US don’t even speak Spanish.
I’m just saying it’s possible.
With this in mind, may I humbly present my ‘Top Four Things People Could Do to Make the World Better”.
4. Do All the Things.
Sorry, wait, all the LEGAL things. And I’m not saying everybody HAS to go skydiving, or stroll the Champs De Elysees, or run a marathon, or even leave their house for that matter.
Do you know that thing you sometimes think about and say “Man, I wish I could do that..” or “I’ve always wanted to ________.” Yeah?
Do that.
(Again, as long as it’s legal, and not keeping someone else from doing their things.)
At least TRY to do it.
Sure, maybe you’ll get to page ten of the novel you thought you always wanted to write and you’ll realize that it took you three months to do it, you didn’t enjoy it, and your protagonist has gone from being ‘mad’, to ‘very mad’, to ‘very, really, seriously mad’ because you just can’t find the right words no matter how hard you try.
If you get there, you’ve done the thing, it’s not working, and you’re released to try more things.
How much time are we (me, I’m talking about me) spending just thinking about doing things, being jealous of the people doing them? Let me tell you a secret: Those people? Yeah, they’re just people like you and me.
YES, you’re right, Stephen King is Stephen FREAKING King but also if Stephen King eats too many fully loaded burritos, he suffers just like the rest of us.
Do I mean that I’m going to walk away from this blog post and just casually sit down to write the next ‘Carrie’? Or ‘The Stand’? Or ANY version of ‘IT’??? Maybe not. But also maybe, right?
I don’t know yet because I haven’t done the thing.
3. Understand Your Space
Just by showing up on the planet when we did, we all have the right to have our own space. Part of that space is actual, well, space… the area around me that I get to myself and I have the choice to invite other people into (or disinvite people from).
It doesn’t mean that my space is more important than yours. Miine ONLY gets to overlap yours if we’re both cool with that.
That’s only one plane of the space we’re talking about here though. Another is the space that we get to take us and the space around us into occupy physically. If there are two people and two chairs, understanding the space we can occupy means understanding we each get one chair. It seems simple until your feet are KILLING YOU and someone won’t take their backpack off the seat on the bus, right?
The third leg of this whole space discussion is mental, emotional, and spiritual space. It’s the space between our ears that we either carefully curate and protect or it gets cluttered with other people.
A lot of us do pretty well with our space a lot of the time, but sometimes we take too much space.
Let me explain by telling you about going places with my Mom.
When she was in her thirties, my Mom fell and hurt her back and it never healed quite right. Possibly because she was a Nurse for the next 30 years. Plus, the stress of being on her feet all day, every day also wrecked both of her knees.
Two knee replacements later she uses a cane if she’s not going far and a walker if she is.
Now, picture being somewhere in a crowd with Mom doing everything she can just to push her walker and keep moving it forward, especially if the ground isn’t perfectly even or there’s an incline. She working so hard just to be there and have a life and people swerve in front of her, cut her off, stop in the middle of the stupid aisle and shout to someone at the other side of the store, let their mob of unruly kids push in from all sides of her.. You name it, I’ve seen people do it.
When people do those things, they’re effectively communicating that they think deserve more space in the world than someone else, and they don’t care (or notice) that they’re ruining the experience for someone else.
This is one of those kind of easy solutions though, right? Protect your space, let other people have theirs, and apologize when you forget. If you’re lucky, you’ll be in Wisconsin and you’ll get to hear “Oh no, you’re fine.” in our charming little accent.
2. Talk to Each Other
I believe that a lot more would be solved a lot more quickly if we would start being willing to have an honest talk. And this is WAY easier than it sounds. We’re not just talking about getting things out in the open with the people you like, this applies to everyone. That means we don’t get to rest safe in the idea that everybody wants to be friends when the conversation is over. Sometimes you’re not going to get what you need because that other people doesn’t CARE about that, right?
Let me give you an example: I have a co-worker that got into the habit of rolling her eyes LOUDLY every time a project I worked on came up in a meeting. Like, LOUDLY. And it went on for YEARS. It went on for so long that I went from being angry about it, to being resigned that it was never going to stop happening, and swung back to angry again. Angry enough to finally do something.
I went into her office, asked her if she had time to talk, and said something like “I’d appreciate it if you would stop rolling your eyes and making snide comments about this project in front of our co-workers. We worked really hard on it and you’re being really disrespectful of that.”
(Yes, I did almost poop my pants a little that I was able to be so blunt and still string together words.)
I’d love to say here that she said “My goodness, I didn’t know you felt that way, I’m so ashamed, I will stop. I do respect your work.”.
That’s not AT ALL what happened.
She freaked out. She told me that she felt cut out of all of the decisions at work and swept under the rug and that no one listened to her anymore. She actually cried. A lot.
And you know what, she never did show even an ounce of remorse for acting like a spoiled middle-schooler, she didn’t apologize even a little. But she stopped doing it, at least in front of me.
Not a perfect outcome when you really want someone to be AT LEAST ashamed they got caught, but I’ll take it.
1. Listen to Each Other.
Right. Here we are at number one, and this one is maybe the hardest.
At least I’ll admit this is hard for me.
But hear me out, it’s not that I don’t want to listen, it’s just that when we disagree I am SO FREAKING SURE you’re wrong and I, therefore, ergo, am right.
It’s hard to listen to what someone else is saying when you’re SO DAMN RIGHT all of the time.
Yes, this is my kryptonite, and I have to work hard every single day on it.
The good news is that if I can do this, ANYONE can.
I’ll even give you one of my favorite life hacks. (Just promise you’ll never tell anyone where you learned it. I’ve been tricking a whole lot of people for a long time and I want to keep it up.)
Picture this: you’re in the middle of an argument, intense discussion, tense conversation, normal conversation, etc. (Can you tell this happens to me basically all of the time?)
You realize that the other person is talking, maybe has been for a while, and you’ve totally lost the point of what they’re saying because you stopped listening.
Maybe you don’t agree with what they’re saying and you’re formulating your counterpoint (this happens, even when it shouldn’t), or you’re thinking about lunch (very common), or you suddenly realized they have one nostril larger than the other (probably also common, just look around), no matter the reason, you’re temporarily lost.
What do you do?
TELL THEM about their whacka-do looking nose? NO!
You say something like “Just so I understand, what you’re saying is _______, right?”
You fill in that blank with as close to what you do actually know as possible, even if you’re stabbing in the dark.
In my experience, as long as you ask sincerely and listen to their answer, this will work EVERYTIME. You get back on track, they don’t realize that you’ve been lost at all, and life is good for a little while.
There you have it, those four pretty simple things could make things better, at least in your immediate vicinity, Will they change the world? Hm, not sure. Maybe? It’s worth a try, right?
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