I’m generally a mild-mannered, mild-spoken (sometimes so mild you can barely hear me), and mild in general (at least from an outside perspective), so I don’t let loose and rant very often. In fact I generally try not to offer an opinion on an event unless asked for one, and when I am, I’ll usually give a simple, straightforward answer, or a quick quip and duck out of there (or stay and get entrenched in a long conversation, but that’s a separate problem). Lately, however, I have felt a rant coming on, and it’s against one simple thing - the idiotic way people act.
A few weeks ago a kid I know (15 y.o.) was in camp, and he had to leave a few days early because he was shot in the face point blank with a BB gun. I’ll repeat that - he was shot in the face point blank with a BB gun. Why?, I can practically hear you asking (well, actually I can’t, I’m just pretending - but don’t tell anyone). Because you see, this einstein of a 15 year old boy thought his BB gun was empty, so he aimed it, point blank (less than a foot away) at another kid’s face, and pulled the trigger.
Well, the victim had to go home and have the BB pellet surgically removed from his cheek bone, and the shooter was kicked out of the camp, and subsequently the private school which he attended… and I doubt he’s getting accepted into another. So basically, he ruined his life, and injured another kid, by doing something stupid - which he would have known was stupid, had he thought about it for two seconds - without thinking. And this frustrates me quite a bit, because we’ve all seen someone do something immensely foolish unthinkingly, with dramatic consequences.
But really, when you think about it, the problem goes deeper. I am fairly certain that every single one of you has done or said something stupid without thinking about the consequences, and come to regret it. I know some incredible people, each of whom I would be hard put to find fault with - even so, I believe the same to be true of them. Perhaps none of us, and certainly none of the people we respect and look up to has done something this stupid, with such dramatic consequences, but we’ve all made this mistake - it’s human nature.
But before I deal with what I believe we should do to correct this, I’m going to point out something else which has frustrated me near endlessly, and has driven me further past the point of insanity than I had previously traversed. People convince themselves that stupid, harmful things aren’t nearly as bad as they are made out to be, and in fact should be acceptable.
Over the summer, I conversed with a number of 15-19 year old boys who have smoked cigarettes in varying quantities. I didn’t even bother trying to argue the illegality of the matter, because they all knew that they were violating that, and certainly had no excuses ready for that. Instead I tried to understand their opinion from a health perspective, to see how they thought killing themselves was ok. I got a number of different responses, from those who had absolutely no clue, to those who had done their research and came up with a somewhat viable excuse (though I was understandably reluctant to admit it).
Probably the stupidest response i got was “Well… anyone who says smoking is wrong is an idiot.” Yes, I’m sure your brilliant 15 year old self can viably argue against accepted medical authorities. When asked exactly what benefit he got from cigarettes, this genius informed me that they gave him clarity, and when asked why he doesn’t just do something else for clarity, like, for instance, taking a walk in the woods, he claimed not to have the time.
Others came from a different perspective - they weren’t smoking enough to significantly shorten their lives, and they were going to quit when they started seriously dating - in perhaps 5 years. Aside from the factor of addiction, which none of them had a viable response to (and no, “I haven’t gotten addicted yet, so I’m not going to get addicted now,” is not a viable response), there were a few groups among them. First there were those who claimed that all studies were skewed and had been conducted on “people who had been smoking 2 packs a day for 20 years” and therefore something which seemed viable to them, such as a few cigarettes a day, was fine. Others had absolutely no clue “If I smoke less than half a pack a day for 5 years it’s not going to shorten my life.” And then there was the third group - a 19 y.o. who had smoked perhaps half a dozen cigarettes so far and only planned on smoking 2-3 and others with similar ideas, to whom I had to (grudgingly) admit that if he didn’t get addicted there were no serious health effects other than an increased risk of lung cancer and heart disease.
I could go on with other cases and specific examples, but I’ve already wasted enough of your time - and fumed enough - that I’ll stop here. Instead I’ll point out that once again, although I doubt any of you have convinced themselves of something this abysmally stupid - we all do this to some extent. We all convince ourselves of things which are logically wrong, and in this way we do harm to ourselves and to others.
So finally the question may be posed - what can we do to prevent this, what can we do to counteract it. For the first problem - that of acting without thinking and coming to regret it, the solution is as simple to phrase as it is difficult to carry out - think before you say or do something. Think if it may bring an unpleasant outcome, consider whether or not it’s something you may come to regret. Many of you will find this is an exercise in futility (as well as an exercise of your patience), but if you keep at it I think you’ll find that it will save your hide more than once.
The other problem - that of convincing oneself that something is acceptable or ok to do, even though from a logical perspective it’s clearly not - has a more difficult solution, and one I honestly believe is probably harder to carry out, but still possible. I would suggest that the solution to this problem is to go someone you respect, whose opinion you respect, and ask them to tell you whether what you’re doing is right or wrong - and listen to them! And, no, I don’t mean you have to ask aforementioned person/people about everything you do, but rather about the most potentially harmful things, about the controversial things, about the things which you’ve been told by others that it’s wrong. How can you tell? I have no idea - this is something for your judgement - no doubt some people will include too much, and some people too little, but that’s the world we live in.
One thing I would like to add, and this is probably the most controversial thing in this post - I believe that the things which causes the most harm - to society in general, and to our individual endeavors - are foolish, ill thought out actions/words (I obviously don’t include actions done with harmful and/or negative intentions). Selfish actions can cause problems, but in general they neither harm nor help significantly. It is instead the intelligent, selfless actions which we do which generate the greatest helpful effect. So I beseech you - whoever you are, wherever you are, to try to do as many thought-through, selfless acts as you can - especially if you’re in a position to influence others. For those in a position to influence others - encourage them to do the same, and make our world a better place.
Wow, I feel better for having typed that. Thanks for listening.
Hyperbole out.
Note: image source: https://pixabay.com used with permission.
