Who’s That Plotting Against Me?
In the event that I spent my days trying to uncover conspiracies that were directed against me, like all those people on Facebook, explaining why I’m not more successful and happier, I’d choose:
- Billing operations (most notably AT&T) which don’t use first class mail and/or bill so close to the due date that I’ll be late paying, and then advise me “for my convenience” that I can enroll in autopay. This is much cheaper for them and lets them into my bank account. I don’t think so.
- TSA which so frequently chooses me for a “random check” even though I haven’t set off their bomb detection machines.
- The inevitability of people in front of me in the high-speed lane who is a) oblivious, b) ignorant, c) compensating for low self-esteem who refused to move out of the way even though there is no one in front of them for a mile.
- The women who ask questions of my personal trainer while he is spotting me and counting, creating a huge, annoying distraction.
- The airline pilot who decides with malice aforethought not to extinguish the seat belt sign until everyone is clearly having kidney problems, and then comes out behind the impregnable flight attendants hiding the behind the serving cart, and shoots the breeze with them for 15 minutes.
- People who just won’t shut up. When I ask you a question about the yard I don’t need to hear the history of trees, and when I ask when you’d like to talk next I don’t need to hear the entirety of your calendar, your kids’ college plans, or why two marriages didn’t work (I have a pretty good idea about that).
Seriously, folks, it seems the normal sequence from data to information to knowledge to wisdom has been distorted to include “conspiracies.” Allow me advise you of two things:
- Education and intelligence are not synonymous and are independent variables.
- When you feel like you must explain away failure, or misery, or bad luck as some conspiracy aimed against you, then you are paranoid. You need help.
