Feb 8, 2023–Some of you people reading this today are liars. Or crooks.
How do I know this? Just read the rest of this newspaper. You’ll see local accounts of people defrauding innocent customers, shoplifting, burgling, and scuffling.
How can anyone do these things in public? Everyone knows theft is wrong. Just as we know murder is immoral. War is dumb. Drugs are bad.
Yet mankind continues to practice all of the above. And will never change.
Let’s take one example: doing drugs. Again, read the police reports. Illegal drug abuse might be number one on the hits parade.
Yet generations of programs about the evils of drugs–from Reefer Madness to Just Say No to D.A.R.E.–were shoved down the throats of every adult alive today, at great cost, effort, and fanfare.
The results? Did we see a steep decline in drug use? Just the opposite:
A 1992 Indiana University study showed that graduates of the Drug and Alcohol Resistance Education program had significantly higher rates of hallucinogenic drug use than those not exposed to the program.
As one student noted: “It just showed me what drugs I should do and which ones to avoid.”
Another area: Weight Loss.
Is there any functioning human on the planet who doesn’t know that the only way to be fit and maintain weight is by exercising more and eating less? I learned it at age 4 watching Jack LaLanne do jumping jacks every morning before I went to school.
Yet look around next time you are in a public place. How many of us look like Jack LaLanne?
So, why do all the education, all the information, all the teaching, all the resources, all the money that goes into keeping us healthy, moral, happy, prosperous, have no impact?
Obviously there is a Gap between Knowing What To Do, and Doing It.
We are weak, impotent creatures. Is that true? Is that fair?
Is it fixable?
All I can conclude is that we are not rational creatures. We have the cumulative knowledge of every generation that went before us, literally available at our fingertips, and yet, we don’t bother to follow any of their advice.
We don’t listen.
Whenever anyone asks for my advice on a topic they perceive I am well-informed on, I no longer give it. Because in all the advice I ever have given, the person asking for it never took it. They never even listen to it.
Pay attention the next time someone asks you for advice. Their eyes become fixed and dilated about three seconds into your speech. The rest of what you say is a breeze through the pines, distant waves on the beach, scratches on the record, as the person enjoys the movie they were watching in their head before approaching you. You might as well be singing a sea chanty. Hey Ho, and up she rises…
So as much as it pains this former teacher to say it, we never learn anything. Those of us who are overweight, out of shape, and immoral will continue to be fat, lazy, and mean.
People who are motivated, curious, and burning to succeed, will learn, burn, and earn.
Nothing anyone can say to them, show them, or teach them will change the path they are on.
Too harsh? Do you know someone who has done so? Better question: have YOU changed your own path?
If so, tell someone how you did it.
They won’t listen, but tell them anyway.