Tag: effort

Waste

There were two things my children could do when they were younger that guaranteed that I would lose my temper: say “I can’t,” and waste something. “I can’t” will most certainly come up another day, but waste has been on my mind quite a bit.

Actually, it’s always on my mind.

That waste is bad is an a priori statement to me. Waste erases whatever time and whatever energy that went into producing something. And it also aborts whatever else could have been produced with the time and energy that was tossed away. We lose twice: we junk something of value, and we are without the alternate uses of the resources that produced it.

I know waste is inevitable. But I heard today that we throw out almost half the food we produce. Half. That shouldn’t be inevitable.

And I am as guilty as anyone. I do our menu planning and most of our grocery shopping. And on a weekly basis we throw out vegetables, fruit, meat, and a lot of leftovers that spoil because the food plan was too robust. Soups that looked good in the store didn’t find any takers in our house, and their expiration dates passed while they were in our pantry. We’ve opened our share of tortilla chips gone rancid while they sat in the garage, because they were the second half of a buy-one-get-one-free promotion that came at a time when we only wanted one bag.

But we waste more than food. Electricity cools empty houses. Cars idle in parking lots. We’re oblivious to time as it passes while we scroll further down our Facebook feeds. We have dreams, we make plans, and then we leave them to wither.

And I’m as guilty as anyone. I want to do better. But can I?

Blame exhaustion from our busy lives. Blame our disposable culture that encourages us to get rid of things when we tire of them. Blame our distractions. But really, blame ourselves. We choose what we do, and we own our choices. I hope I can do better.

Politics

Our politics is rife with emotional conflict these days.

Republican vs. Democrat. Progressive vs. conservative. Flyover vs. coasts. Our perspectives have hardened, and there is not an inch given to anyone who has a different view.

I studied economics in college, and I believe that free markets use resources more efficiently than any other economic model. I’ve worked in corporations for decades, so I’ve seen company leaders make many decisions, and every one of the decisions I witnessed were made ethically and reasonably and with no intent to deceive or harm people. I think a healthy economy is important because it is the most effective way to improve the financial situations of the most people.

I consider myself politically progressive. I usually vote for candidates who promise to fund schools at all levels, invest in infrastructure improvements, purchase more park lands, extend unemployment benefits, and provide health services to low-income people regardless of status. Even if those actions will sometimes put stress on the economy and require greater tax payments from me and others at my income level (or above it).

As important as I think a healthy, robust market economy is to us, I think it’s more important for us to do what we can to help all members of our community be well and be whole, so they are more likely to achieve their goals and, in so doing, contribute to our society. My financial well-being doesn’t mean very much to me if other people are in misery. This is particularly important to me right now, given where we are in the history of the United States and the rest of the western world, where people’s suffering is justified with “we can’t afford to [fill in the blank].” We can’t afford to welcome Muslim immigrants because one might harm us. We can’t afford to help people without health insurance because that requires more taxes. We can’t afford to protect our water and air and workplaces because it reduces the number of jobs available. If I gave credence to any of these statements – and I don’t, because I think the cost argument is both simplistic and exagerrated – I would still choose to welcome the immigrants, provide health care, and protect our resources and our people. Jobs and money and financial security of the haves aren’t justifications to deny others the things they need to live a secure life so that they can pursue their dreams and contribute to our communities.

We can afford to treat everyone equally under the law, we can afford to treat everyone the same with regard to Constitutional rights, and those of us with means can afford to give up more of that wealth to help our communities run more smoothly while providing the tools and support for people to make constructive lives for themselves.

Apparently we just don’t want to.  And that profoundly disappoints me.

Change

Change is in the air. It’s always in the air. Change is omnipresent.

But there are two kinds of change: the change that happens to us, and the change we make happen.

It’s said we resent the change that happens to us. Lack of control, I guess. I see it differently.

An amazing world has unfolded in front of us with no effort on our part: smartphones that keep us continually connected with the people we care about, cars that safely and comfortably take us where we want to go, access to convenient flights all around the world, medicines that dramatically improve our quality of life in the face of illnesses both acute and chronic, hundreds of channels of entertainment that come from everywhere on the globe. We don’t like some aspects of our lives when they change: the new traffic light that slows my commute by a couple minutes a day, the neighbor who painted his house an unflattering color, the new boss, the new PTA president, the new layout at the grocery store – we complain all about these little changes while we take the newest advances that actually change the way we live as a birthright.

It’s the other change that interests me at the moment though. It’s daunting to try to make change in the world. The investment of time, energy and emotion is enormous, and the outcome is uncertain. And in our world, where we’ve been accustomed to beneficial change just happening, having to face situations that cause us great discomfort – and I’m thinking specifically about the current political situation in the United States, where a government with the minority of votes controls both the legislative and executive branches – is a big-time gut check. If you’re not happy with the current situation, what are you willing to invest to try to change it?

There are seminal events that happen, events that fire the imagination or awake the passions of multitudes of people. But those don’t really create any change. They are the flashpoints that start the processes that lead to change, but to actually change the world we must find focus, determination, and dedication. We need deliberate, sustained action, day after day after day after day.

Do we have the requisite resolve in us? Time, as always, will tell.

Fairness

Fairness. It’s such a fundamental concept for each of us, and we all claim to want life to be fair. Is it?

The answer is, as always, it depends.

It depends on what you mean by fair. Do you mean that you get what you deserve? Or that you get a clear path to what you want? Or that you get help whenever you need it? Or that you should get whatever you set your eyes on? To me, fairness has always been about getting a result commensurate with the personal investment you’ve made to get it.

So is life fair? Do we get that commensurate result?

It depends.

It depends on commitment. On circumstance. On luck, even. In our house we talk about the 80-10-10 rule. Eighty percent of the time we get what we deserve. We give a sincere effort, we get the result we want. We study for the test, we get the grade we wanted. We prepare for an assignment at work, devote time and energy without shortcuts, and we get recognition for a job well done. We prep the wall for painting, tape the baseboards, paint mindfully, and the wall looks great. Or we fail to give that effort, and we come up short. But the result is fair.

Ten percent of the time we give the sincere effort, but we don’t get the result. The teacher tests us on something that wasn’t on the exam prep. The data in our systems turned out to be wrong. The tape on the baseboard was defective and didn’t hold. So despite best efforts, we failed. This is where we’ve been screwed. And this is where we all say, “It’s not fair!”

And it’s not.

But neither is the other ten percent of the time, when we take a shortcut, when we blow off the work and still get the outcome we want. We seem to forget about these instances, where we achieve only because of good luck, when the test is completely on the one part of the chapter we read or when the boss asks the one question we know something about. Instead, we take those gifts as our rightful results, and we don’t remember them when circumstances break the other way.

So is life fair? It’s not always fair, and not always unfair in the way we think. It depends.