Man Overboard

Only dead fish swim with the stream. --Malcolm Muggeridge

I live in a simple world. If it is wrong, stop doing it. If it is broken, fix it. If it's a lie, speak the truth. Stupid is as stupid does. If you go along, you get along. Uh….. no. When we go along to get along, we begin to abandon our own principles and persona. I don’t want to conform in order to have acceptance and security. I want to fit in with my differences intact.

From Wikipedia: 'Solomon Asch conducted his classic conformity experiments in an attempt to discover if people would still conform when the right answer was obvious. Using confederates, he created the illusion that an entire group of participants believed something that was obviously false. When in this situation, participants conformed about a third of the time on trials where the confederates gave obviously false answers.' So agree to a lie and people will like you.

I picked up an upper respiratory virus while on vacation which showed up after I returned to work. Bummer. I needed to call in under the new policy which requires me to speak directly to either my boss or director. No more leaving a message or texting. I called my boss, left a message saying I was sick, and would continue to call her. After two more attempts to the office, one to her cell phone and one to the director with no answers I left another message. I admit it was a pissy message about attempting to reach them with no luck. Why make a policy without a way to successfully implement it? An hour later, I get a pissy call to acknowledge my pissy call. (Was that really necessary, Boss? Hope you feel better now.) When I ask what can be done in the future to reach someone, she says, leave a message. What? Forrest Gump would be pleased. Stupidity is based more on our actions than on the speed at which you think. 

My husband says I get in trouble because I ‘rock the boat’. I disturb the status quo. After eight years, I think I finally realize the boat is anchored. It’s not going anywhere. Time to jump ship.

Stick A Fork in It

I went to the golden trough for dinner. You’ve probably eaten there too, that well known place offering steak everyday or all the shrimp you can eat? Ever notice the size of people who come to a buffet? Of course, it could just be the small town I live in. People, especially the women, are large here. Statistically, on any given day, I could see the correct percentage of the obese population coming to graze. Perhaps not. After putting my fork down, I watched my husband stack up empty plates. I wonder if he ever thinks about why he can’t stop eating when he fully acknowledges he eats too much when we come here. A disconnect from what he knows to what he does, but not really.

Errol Morris writes about anosognosia, a condition in which a person who suffers from a disability, seems unaware of or denies the existence the disability. Not-knowing things that we should know — not knowing that we are not making any sense, not knowing that we are paralyzed, not knowing we are missing limbs. Or perhaps not knowing when we should put the fork down. Dunning and Kruger* argued in their paper, “When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it.” Forrest Gump summed it up,

"Stupid is as stupid does.

*Justin Kruger and David Dunning, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties of Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-assessments,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1999, vol. 77, no. 6, pp. 1121-1134.