Are you part of the problem?

Here's what gets me lately. People love to complain. This is hardly breaking news (unlike the weather, which is always breaking news especially when it's August in Texas and it's 100 degrees outside.... it's so WEIRD! No one was expecting this at all!). As humans, we love to pick out patterns. And as a particularly pattern-driven person, you'd think I'd be better at math. So to apply my pattern-finding abilities, I like to observe humans and try to pick out their behavioral patterns. Maybe I should've been a psychiatrist or something.

Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you. Can you imagine people's mental health being in my shaky and destructive hands? Shake it off. Try not to think about it. OK. Anyway. So I've noticed the way that people complain. It seems to me, that everyone else is the problem and the complainee is the solution. Every time.

Exhibit A: "I'm so tired of the bar scene. You can never find any quality people there." So.... are you a quality person? If you are, then you're at the bar. And since I hear that complaint constantly, that means that other quality people are at the bar, too. That leads me to believe that one of three things are in play here. Either A) A vast majority of people at the bar are quality people, but all the quality people end up magically never talking to each other but instead finding every shallow deadbeat along the way, B) The quality people aren't trying very hard, or C) Everyone who thinks they're a quality person, isn't and is therefore part of the problem.

I was going to have an Exhibit B, but as it turns out, you can take most complaints and basically apply that formula to them.

Main question being: How often do you hear people admitting that they're part of the problem? I'll tell you what got me thinking about this. I was watching Last Comic Standing because I enjoy being amused. And they had Caroline Rhea come on and do a set and shamelessly plug The Biggest Loser. In her set, she mentions the way that no one can take a compliment. And she used the example of telling someone that you like their dress and they immediately either deny the dress is attractive or give you some random fact that you just didn't care about. "I got it for a dollar! At a garage sale! And I haven't even washed it yet!" And then I realized: I was part of the problem. I very rarely just take a compliment. I'm getting better at it, but I am totally Random Fact Spouting Girl. I've gotten that blank stare of "Why did you just tell me that?" so many times. I think part of it is that continuing to talk somehow takes the spotlight off of me, and another part is that I am normally very comfortable around people. It's the Cancer/Leo cusp thing. It's often very confusing for me, too. Sorry about the random personal anecdote. But it does go to show: I admitted I was part of the problem.

But how often does that happen? How often do you hear people say that they're the ones that leave clothes unfolded at the Gap after they've looked at them? Who admits that they're the people who never use their turn-signal? And even when people get CAUGHT being part of the problem... they still have every excuse in the book. There was a news story out here, closely related to the shocking... SHOCKING heat we're having. It was about a community who was put on severe water restrictions and had to let their lawns die (I know, very sad), all the while watching the brand new golf course next door water their greens three times a day. That means that at least once, they were watering in the middle of the day. When confronted about it, the golf course referred the reporter to the city. The city claimed that the golf course watering was allowed because it was considered new landscape. Wha? Severe water restrictions. No measurable rain in a month. Lakes are literally drying up. Everyone's lawn is a certifiable fire hazard. And new landscape? That's your excuse? You sir, are part of the problem.

So I have a new mission, Internets Friends. To crusade against the Real Problems. To see through lame excuses and deflections. To not only crusade against the problems, but for the solutions. And the first step in that crusade, is to admit it... every one of us... which problems we are contributing to. It must begin with us, my friends. Join my crusade, will you? My crusades against shredded lettuce and phone books are both going so well, I figure it's time to start up a new one.

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