The Neck
Recently I’ve been up to my neck in bureaucracy trying to get things done with regard to my appeal, changing my job status and having checks mailed to me. It seems as if everywhere in life, there are procedures and processes that enable inaction. When inaction is an option, a person takes it.
On numerous occasions in my life, I have spoken with my father about the subject of trying to get other people to do things for you. Like fathers are, he is cynical and realistic. He claims that teamwork is sham since the nature of most men in inaction. In any group, there are but one or two real doers and that everyone else is a hanger-on. The only way to get them do something is to make it in their direct best interest to do so. Being a “squeaky wheel” works as you are annoying them into doing something in their best interest (to make you stop annoying them), but the work involved in being a “squeaky wheel” usually is greater than the benefit or greater than just doing it yourself.
Perhaps I should read “Getting to Yes” and “Getting Past No.” But, I think I know what these books say. I’m sure they talk about how requests need to be reframed to make the audience think that an action is in their best interest.
My father speaks of this issue with a telling amount of anger. I suspect he thinks of his battery of famously lazy secretaries that he has had to cope with since before I was born. Ironically, with all of his faults, the one thing I can say about my father is that he is giver. Perhaps it’s from obligation or principle, but he often helps others for no reason. My father is an atheist who thinks that nearly all human beings are worthless and undeserving. So, why does this very jaded man continue help people? It is the antithesis of his belief that people only act in their best interest.
When my father was perhaps seven or eight he told me he received a letter from his grandfather while at church camp (yes, he went to church camp). My great-grandfather told him “helping others is all that matters.” My father laughs about this letter. How appropriate is it to send this to a boy of seven or eight? Still, he recalls the letter after fifty years, which tells me that perhaps it was appropriate.
As you may know, my pop-cultural savior is Angel. Day-after-day, he saves people, but, being manically depressed, none of it helps him feel less guilty and none of it helps him gain personally. So, why does he do it? “What else am I going to do?” was his response to this query.
The obvious answer to Angel’s semi-rhetorical question is “help yourself,” but instantly it is self-evident how empty that it. Yet, sadly, that is what people do.
Necks are for sticking out. Few people realize it, though. All around there are those that say they will help you and will “do what they can,” but what they really mean is that they will help you if it doesn’t trouble them too much or if it will help them as well. When you do find people that are truly willing to help the helpless, remember them and cherish them, fore they are rare
On numerous occasions in my life, I have spoken with my father about the subject of trying to get other people to do things for you. Like fathers are, he is cynical and realistic. He claims that teamwork is sham since the nature of most men in inaction. In any group, there are but one or two real doers and that everyone else is a hanger-on. The only way to get them do something is to make it in their direct best interest to do so. Being a “squeaky wheel” works as you are annoying them into doing something in their best interest (to make you stop annoying them), but the work involved in being a “squeaky wheel” usually is greater than the benefit or greater than just doing it yourself.
Perhaps I should read “Getting to Yes” and “Getting Past No.” But, I think I know what these books say. I’m sure they talk about how requests need to be reframed to make the audience think that an action is in their best interest.
My father speaks of this issue with a telling amount of anger. I suspect he thinks of his battery of famously lazy secretaries that he has had to cope with since before I was born. Ironically, with all of his faults, the one thing I can say about my father is that he is giver. Perhaps it’s from obligation or principle, but he often helps others for no reason. My father is an atheist who thinks that nearly all human beings are worthless and undeserving. So, why does this very jaded man continue help people? It is the antithesis of his belief that people only act in their best interest.
When my father was perhaps seven or eight he told me he received a letter from his grandfather while at church camp (yes, he went to church camp). My great-grandfather told him “helping others is all that matters.” My father laughs about this letter. How appropriate is it to send this to a boy of seven or eight? Still, he recalls the letter after fifty years, which tells me that perhaps it was appropriate.
As you may know, my pop-cultural savior is Angel. Day-after-day, he saves people, but, being manically depressed, none of it helps him feel less guilty and none of it helps him gain personally. So, why does he do it? “What else am I going to do?” was his response to this query.
The obvious answer to Angel’s semi-rhetorical question is “help yourself,” but instantly it is self-evident how empty that it. Yet, sadly, that is what people do.
Necks are for sticking out. Few people realize it, though. All around there are those that say they will help you and will “do what they can,” but what they really mean is that they will help you if it doesn’t trouble them too much or if it will help them as well. When you do find people that are truly willing to help the helpless, remember them and cherish them, fore they are rare
posted by American Dilettante at
12:40 PM
1 Comments:
> What else am I going to do?
Exactly. If nothing you do if going to make your life any better, why not at least make someone else's life better.
When I see someone doing the same kind of stupid things that I'm apt to do, I yell at them in exactly the same unhelpful way that my inner voice yells at myself.
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mizerock, at 10:47 AM
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