One Hundred Things That Don’t Make You a Better Person
(Read WP posts from Morgan Freeberg) | (Read MT posts from Morgan Freeberg) | rssI'm just on the light side of 44 now, and in a flash of insight I lately realized that nearly all of the things that have infuriated me beyond all reason...or simply irritated me mildly...have been done by people anxious to prove they're wonderful. If only people weren't so desperate to find new ways to prove their wonderfulness, my disposition would be considerably sweetened and I'd probably have a lot more years ahead of me on terra firma right about now.
Those people did these things to define themselves as wonderful people, because they assumed these empty rituals would get it done. How do we convince them this is not the case? Here's where my flash of insight went off. Maybe...just maybe...they assumed this because nobody ever took the time to tell them any differently.
Okay. Well, I'm telling you differently. Right now. These things do not make you a better person, and if you think they do, you're wrong.
Raising a child makes you a better person. Conquering a deeply-held fear, or learning a new talent, makes you a better person. Helping out in a soup kitchen, exercising in the morning, holding the door open for a good-looking lady -- these things make you a better person.
The following things do not...repeat NOT...make you a better person. They do not change the outcome...except for a few of them, in which case, they change it for the worse. Let's just get that one thing clear. Word needs to get out, you cannot improve yourself by doing any of these things.
1. Outlawing capital punishment
2. Banning guns
3. Sitting down to talk to our enemies
4. Unplugging the coffee pot after it is done making coffee
5. Unplugging the cell phone when it's done recharging
6. Inventing new "civil rights" like, for example, someone can use the opposite-gender restroom when they're a pre- or post-op tranny
7. Taking the convict's unpleasant upbringing into account during the sentencing
8. Paying more taxes, opposing tax cuts or supporting tax increases
9. Taking the blame for a conflict in which the other party is clearly in the wrong
10. Forgiving someone for the mistake that killed your friend or family member
11. Apologizing for things you fully intend to do again
12. Buying things for your kids, indulging your kids, becoming your own kids' "best friend"
13. Looking for the union label
14. Knowing who got kicked off American Idol last night
15. Avoiding generalizations
16. Being technologically ignorant, "not knowing a single thing about com-pyoo-ters"
17. Knowing other, non-English, languages
18. Telling jokes
19. Talking smack about Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Mark Levin, Neal Boortz, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, Laura Schlessinger, Roger Ailes, Karl Rove, Tony Snow, Glenn Beck, Oliver North, Ted Olson, Ted Nugent, Laura Bush, Pamela Geller, Mary Katherine Ham, James O'Keefe, Andrew Breitbart, Dan Riehl, Cassy Chesser, Victor Davis Hanson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, et al.
20. Raising awareness of...whatever
21. Audibly itemizing your husband's faults to your friends
22. Refusing to bring him a beer
23. Owning a li'l tiny purse-dog
24. Taking sides when your friends are getting a divorce
25. Recycling
26. Driving a hybrid, or converting your car to burn vegetable oil
27. "Totally-respecting" someone/something
28. Believing & repeating every crackpot theory about your kid's supposed "learning disability"
29. Laughing at jokes you don't find funny
30. Telling a pretty girl she's pretty (she already knows, you're probably creeping her out)
31. Calling them "undocumented immigrants"
32. Siding with the underdog
33. Calling corporations greedy
34. Speaking in an unnaturally high voice (when you're a man)
35. Crying during a movie
36. Siding with the majority, doing what lots of other people are doing, or showing "solidarity"
37. Removing "In God We Trust" from our nation's money
38. Supporting an expanded welfare state
39. Getting married
40. Going to church
41. Living under socialized medicine
42. Denouncing the tea parties for being "too white"
43. Demonstrating
44. Playing the lottery
45. Putting a green burial in your will
46. Remaining childless
47. Converting the faithful to atheism
48. Watching "Sex in the City," or living the lifestyle
49. Getting a grant for "art" paintings or sculptures
50. Forcing your guests to remove their shoes before they come into your home
51. Going vegan
52. Blocking Hooters from opening a restaurant in your neighborhood
53. Giving money to a panhandler
54. Trapping an insect in a glass, carrying it outside, and releasing it as opposed to flattening it
55. Approving a home loan for borrowers who cannot maintain it
56. Sustaining an affirmative-action quota in hiring, contracting or enrollment
57. Wearing something cute
58. Voting for or hiring someone who's black, Hispanic, handicapped, Native-American or female
59. "Preserving a woman's right to choose"
60. Not-waterboarding; just feed 'em three times a day and nicely wait for 'em to feel like talking
61. Getting a tattoo
62. Decorating your living room with African or Native-American artwork
63. Carving a "tofurkey" during Thanksgiving
64. Greening your parents
65. Filing a sex-discrimination or weight-discrimination lawsuit...against a place like Hooters
66. Giving your sister/girlfriend some additional encouragement to get a divorce from her husband
67. Dumping more rumors on the Internet about Sarah Palin or Nikki Haley
68. Banning score-keeping during a kid's soccer game
69. Using hemp products
70. Buying condoms for your kid because he/she is "gonna do it anyway"
71. Legally changing your middle name to "Hussein"
72. Forcing little boys to play with dolls
73. Pushing young girls to enroll in computer science courses they don't really want to take
74. Wearing a ponytail (men)
75. Going to a gay wedding
76. Enabling a co-dependent
77. Providing a soft shoulder for your "girlfriend" to cry on, with her latest high-drama pity-fit she got from dealing with her OTHER boyfriend
78. Raising your own grandchildren, while your children go out and make more grandchildren
79. Protesting war. It isn't just hanging around because some people think it's a swell idea, ya know
80. "Tarting up" your eight-year-old for an on-stage performance -- sick, sick, sick
81. Changing lanes without signaling; you aren't brave, you don't look brave, you're actually a fool
82. Boycotting Arizona
83. Supporting a needle exchange program
84. Requiring privately-owned restaurants to allow breast-feeding
85. Raising the minimum wage
86. Supporting wholesale energy price controls
87. Supporting rent controls
88. Supporting a higher capital gains tax
89. Supporting the death tax
90. Using an iPad
91. Using an iPod
92. Sending over a hundred text messages a day to your friends
93. L-O-U-D-L-Y recognizing your friends in a coffee shop, like a cannon going off, so no one within earshot can think about anything else
94. Giving birth at home
95. Getting married in the nude
96. Telling BP to "Plug The Damn Hole!"
97. Teaching your kids all about "conflict resolution"
98. Just about anything you can do to "preserve a child's self-esteem"
99. Using a cloth grocery bag
100. Doing things the way they do them in Europe
Anyone who does any of these things, or has ever done these things, or has ever thought about doing any of these things (for the purpose of proclaiming your inner personal wonderfulness) -- I have a question for you. Why are you feeling un-fulfilled? Why are you going through these empty rituals? Why are you trying to earn the adoration of strangers you will never ever meet again, effectively asking them to adjudicate your worthiness as an individual?
This is a serious problem, although it doesn't explain all of the serious mistakes made in recent human history. Just the huge ones, maybe.
One other question: What is the nature of this wonderfulness you're trying to prove? Is it absolute or is it relative? By which I mean, are you asking to be graded on a curve?
There are amazing, vast quantities of energy going into this "proof." It's probably way overdue to ask such a question.
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