Staying Alive: A Pretty Good Reason Not to Follow

This morning I took the car in for an oil and brake-fluid change, and I waited for it to be done. Not very interesting I know, but while I waited in a small waiting room, I was entertained by visiting with a woman who is raising a 13-year-old daughter. She told me about the challenges she faced because she hasn’t given her daughter a cell phone, ipod, etc. She told me how she had once taken a group of her daughter’s friends to the zoo and had noticed total silence in the car. Looking in the rear-view mirror she saw what is now common: almost all of the kids totally absorbed individually in listening, texting, surfing the internet. They were alone, sitting side by side in rows. She said she pulled over and had the discussion with her wards about “since we’re all here together, let’s visit.” As she told of the incident, I had several sympathy pains for her daughter. But I had to admire the woman and her willingness to take a stand that I would think unpopular with her daughter, her friends and most of society.

In the last few minutes we were together, she talked about how important it is to teach your children to not follow the crowd. Our last topic reminded me of a column I read last week in the New York Times about the Titanic: “As Hundreds of Men Perished, One Ignored a Rumor to Survive.” The writer, Nicholas Wade, focuses on science for the Times, but strayed a bit with this column. His grandfather survived the Titanic. Wade writes:

“My grandfather was standing on the top starboard deck of the boat with a large group of men when a rumor went around that the men were to be taken off on the port side. Almost everyone moved across the ship. Only he and two others stayed where they were.

“Shortly after, he heard a cry of ‘Any more ladies?’ from a lifeboat swinging level with the deck below. Leaning over the edge of his deck, he looked down at the boat.

“‘Any ladies on your deck?’ a crew member asked him.

“‘No,’ my grandfather replied.

“‘Then you had better jump.’”

His grandfather jumped and survived, all because he wasn’t swayed by a rumor or the movement and momentum of the men around him. By this time 100 years ago, Mr. Wade’s grandfather had been pulled from the lifeboat and was on his way–alive–to New York.

I thought this one more good story to add to the parental arsenal for tactical use when the kids come saying once again, “Everyone’s doing it.”

And Mr. Wade’s closing line is perfect for the big impact:  “In any event, I owe my existence to the fact that in those few critical moments he had the confidence to think differently from the crowd.”