| Little Johnny is beside himself. Attempts to calm him down just make him cry louder. He screams incoherently. He obviously wants something but it is impossible to figure out what it is. He's over the edge. I doubt if he knows what he wants. He physically strikes out at attempts to console him. He doesn't want his shoulders rubbed. He doesn't want to be touched at all. Your attempts to bathe him in the warm sounds of your soothing voice only agitate him further. He is beyond the point where he can be coaxed with ice cream cones or bribed with promises of tickets to the Wisconsin Dells or even Great America. There is only one thing that has a chance of bringing Little Johnny back to his senses: A time out. And what is that? It's a time and space separated from the usual flurry of activity. It is usually spent facing a corner of a room. It is so wonderful that those who need this respite no longer wear dunce hats. The need to periodically jump off of this not-so-merry-go-round is slowly coming to be thought of as sane and wise instead of aberrant. Little Johnny faces the boring corner. He notices the irregularities in the drywall and how inexpertly the final coat of sticky compound was applied. You only notice these things when they are right in front of your nose and there is absolutely nothing else to look at. Maybe time out is not such a bad idea no matter what age you happen to be. I remember many years ago when I frequented a particular supermarket. It has since changed owners and its name. But that is of no particular importance. The thing that etched a groove in my memory is that one of the computerized cash registers was out of service. There was considerable grumbling from the customers in that line. The cashier tried valiantly to calculate the cost of things the old fashioned way, for a minute or two, but that was to no avail. I remember the old days when cashiers had to figure out the price of two cans of peas when they were three for $1.19. But that was a different era. Even if the cashier could have done the math that day, the computerized cash register was needed because it served other functions, I suppose. It just so happened that there was a substitute store manager that day and she was skilled and knowledgeable about the overall operations of the store, but she was not as universally adept as the regular store manager. I'm convinced that there are store managers who are every bit as skilled as brain surgeons, even though there are not any prime time television shows about grocery store managers while there are more hospital shows than I can shake a stick at. I guess it's a function of how we value and devalue different occupations. But that is another story. The stand-in manager tried to remedy the dysfunctional cash register situation by punching in some secret codes. It didn't work. In fact, it didn't work so thoroughly that the next cash register over stopped working. But the substitute manager was in the zone now. She applied her non-working strategy with even more fervor and within minutes, three of the eight cash registers were malfunctioning and had to be shut down. Her employees begged her to stop trying to fix things because she was making matters worse and they were lucky to have a few still-functioning registers. Their pleading fell on unreceptive ears. She was the manager, by golly, and she was going to fix the machines come hell or high water. The point is that sometimes the most effective thing to do is to not do. More of a bad thing does not make it good. I was a big fan of Hercules movies when I was a kid growing up in New York in the '50s and '60s. A fellow named Steve Reeves was the prevalent Hercules character of the day. For those who may be interested, Steve Reeves was no relation to George Reeves, the fellow who played the television Superman during that era. Many of the Hercules movie scenes stay with me to this day, but there is one that stands out above all others: Hercules found himself with a familiar predicament. It was essentially what superheroes had to face before he was born and the same basic dilemma that they will face in the future. He had to pit his wits, strength, experience and other talents against a formidable foe. In this case, his opponent was a giant. Well, Hercules confronted the giant, put his fears aside and resorted to what he knew how to do. He wrestled the giant and somehow managed to throw him to the ground repeatedly. The only problem was that this particular giant had the unique trait of gaining strength every time he hit the ground, so each time he got up he was stronger. Even after it became obvious to Hercules that slamming the giant to the ground was not to Hercules' advantage, he continued to throw the giant to the ground because that's what he knew how to do. How many of us continue to approach the same problems in the same ways, only to get the same results? The war in Iraq is a painful example of a failure to acknowledge what does not work. It was clear a long time ago to the average thinking person that force was not the remedy to whatever ills the war was purported to cure. But instead of saying time out, this does not work -- the decision was made to essentially do more of the same which was to apply even more force at the cost of more lives. We need to arrive at a place in our local, national and international thinking where we don't feel compelled to know all the answers, with the understanding that the first body of knowledge that we must internalize has to do with what we know not to work. Once we empty ourselves of the self-deception born or habit and often arrogance that prescribes false cures, we will have an opportunity to genuinely seek new answers. In order to arrive at this plateau, we need to declare a time out when business as usual doesn't work. Einstein's definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Let's rid ourselves of this particular variety of insanity, and today is as good a day as any. |
| Simple Things/Lang Kenneth Haynes Time out |
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