Be a Part of the Solution
“Are you kidding me? Is he really returning a thing of milk?” That was the remarks of another customer in the customer service line the day I returned my faulty packaged milk jug. That was the same “who gives a damn” attitude my mother gave me when I told her I was going to Costco and I wanted the receipt to exchange the faulty product while I was there.
Even though the Costco team member made my experience enjoyable and stress free, Mr Who-Gives-A-Damn managed to ruin my day with his smart ass remarks. I could careless what some random person thinks about my shopping habits, but Mr Who-Gives-A-Damn left me stewing over how much I’m aggravated by society.
Without fail you can roll out of bed and before you climb back in to drift off to sleep someone, or many someones, will complain about a problem they have or some underlying problem with society. I’m not flustered with people expressing their displeasure for what they perceive as injustice. I’m agitated by the fact that they will complain about it while simultaneously applying their “who gives a damn” attitude.
The “who gives a damn” attitude comes from feeling irrelevant, which enables a person to defer any sense of personal accountability for his or her sort in life. This sense of victimology is the philosophy that permits problems to fester and intensify. The “who gives a damn” attitude is exhibited by someone who thinks that he or she is just one person and his or her contribution has no impact. If you feel that way, change is accomplished by countless small actions not by some mythic large event.
There is a great story Malcolm Gladwell uses in his book The Tipping Point. Malcolm talks about the out of control crime rate that existed in New York in the 1980’s and the city leadership’s perceived impotence in controlling the problem. Malcolm showed how the tide began to change when David Gunn was brought in as the new Subway Director for the New York Transit Authority to apply James Q Wilson and George Kelling’s Broken Windows Theory.
In a nutshell the theory said that crime was the result of disorder. In order to decrease the crime rate city leadership had to take back the streets and show that they were in charge. Gunn did this by attacking minor criminal offenses like stall jumping, that had previously been disregarded, as if they were capital offenses. Gunn was initially mocked for his tactics, but he eventually could kick back with a grin on his face when he was vindicated as the decrease in crime statistics proved him right.
Wilson and Kelling’s Broken Window Theory is all about taking the jug of milk back. If you are unsatisfied with something you effect change by accumulating thousands of little victories, not by looking for one monumental win. If we had a few more David Gunns and a few less Mr Who-Gives-A-Damns we’d have a lot more to be thankful for and a lot less to complain about. So when the jug of milk is defective be a part of the solution, take it back and let society know that you deserve better.
© Christopher L. Hedges and AverageJoesStory.com, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Christopher L. Hedges and AverageJoesStory.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
