Sweet Article

Speaking of Black Ice, Negative Motivation

Sunday, November 26, 2006

We all know that human beings can be truly horrendous
to each other. Anyone who doesn't know that hasn't really been
paying attention lately. Discord, hatred and fear seem to
be the order of the day. And that's just the recent political
ads.

I've never been accused of being a Pollyanna. Still,
I like to measure the large scale horrors against a couple
of tiny facts.

Imagine you are driving. You're wearing your seat
belt. The person you like least in the entire world is
sitting next to you, not wearing a belt. Suddenly, a beer
truck runs a red light, and you have to slam on the brakes.

You will simultaneously throw out an arm to protect
that person you dislike so much.

Now imagine you're walking down the sidewalk. An
older woman is directly in front of you. Suddenly she hits
an unseen patch of black ice. Her legs go out from under
her and she's about to crack her head. You're very likely
to leap forward and fling yourself between that vulnerable
skull and the sidewalk, without considering how you may
bruise yourself or how it may ruin your expensive new
outfit.

"Well, if I had time to think about it, I'd never do
it," someone once said to me cynically. "At least not for
that guy I hate."

That's just the point. You don't have to think. These
responses aren't thought out. They're programmed in. We
have evolved as social creatures, as a community. No matter
how imperfect it might be. There is something in us that
wants and needs to protect each other. I find that extremely
encouraging, in spite of all the other tendencies we have.



Progress Happens

We are making progress. Again, you have to put it in
perspective. Twenty-four hour, wall-to-wall news coverage
makes it all too plain that we still commit horrors against
each other. And of course the technology we have today gives
us the potential for bigger and better horrors than ever
before. But at least today we are horrified by those horrors.
In Attila the Hun's day, that kind of behavior was simply
accepted.

We no longer eat each other. Some of today's self-
help experts may offer the occasional outlandish
recommendation, but there was a time when our gurus advised
sacrificing babies to get rain.

Progress happens. You have to place our present
sensibilities (as uncivilized as they may sometimes seem)
into a larger scale of time. Not that many years ago, you
could buy yourself someone condemned to death and have him
drawn and quartered to entertain your friends. In another
popular form of family entertainment, two blind men would
be pushed into tiny pens, given clubs and forced to beat
each other to unconsciousness or death. Maybe reality TV
and professional wrestling aren't so bad after all.

William Burroughs might have been right when he said,
"Paranoia is simply having all the facts." I prefer to
think paranoia is about missing a few tiny facts that point
to a bigger picture. And watching far too much Nancy Grace.




Author, speaker Barry Maher, is an expert on communication,
leadership, management & sales as well as a motivational
keynote speaker. This article is adapted from his book, Filling
the Glass, honored by Today's Librarian magazine as "[One
of The Seven Essential Popular Business Books." Read Barry's
other articles, sign up for his newsletter and/or contact him at
_www.barrymaher. com_ (http://www.barrymah er.com/)

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