During high school, my government teacher showed us Scared Straight, a video documentary about high school teenagers that visited a prison and listened to inmates discuss prison life. Inmates shared graphic details about rape, violence, and other unspeakable horrors. The premise was to encourage teenagers to avoid crime by scaring them. Apparently, the program didn’t scare too many people since prisons remain full. No one stayed scared because people don’t learn from other people’s mistakes. For instance, people will smoke until their doctor diagnosis them with lung cancer. Sometimes, even a horrific diagnosis is ignored.
However, death isn’t always enough to save people from their own ignorance. Otherwise, what else do you call someone with Emphysema carrying an oxygen tank in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other? I call him a walking dead man. Let me share a few undisputed facts known by nearly everyone:
• War never solves anything; did we learn anything from the Civil War, Iraq, or Vietnam? No, we still use military force to kill anyone who opposes us.
• Physical abuse is criminal behavior;
• Maxing out your credit cards is ignorant
• Taking a life is murder
• Beating a child is child abuse; and
• Methamphetamine, cocaine, and heroin are destructive.
Although I haven’t listed anything you don’t already know, people continue to commit murder, fight wars, abuse their children, and experiment with drugs. If the truth be known, people rarely adjust their lives—even when faced with obesity, death, or illness.
For instance, consider your co-workers. Don’t they become angry when your employer implements change? Although it's necessary for survival, we still resist. Imagine how workers felt switching from typewriters to computers. It was probably intimidating and frustrating at first but people eventually adapted. People hate change—even when it works. For change to become successful, it must be accepted, embraced, and gradual. Bad behavior that took years to develop, can take even longer to mend.
To emphasize a person's refusal to change, I refer to a woman I assisted from my days as a child support caseworker. In a lengthy conversation, we discussed her ex-husband and his refusal to pay child support.
“My ex-husband isn’t paying his child support. After twenty years of marriage, I divorced him because he wouldn’t work or help pay bills.”
“Do you know where he works? If so, I can send a wage assignment to his employer.”
“That’s the problem, he doesn’t work. But the judge ordered him to support his children. So how come he’s allowed to disobey a judge’s order?”
“Ma’am, in our county, most people don’t pay support. Roughly 33% pay without incident, 33% pay whenever they like and the other 33% never pay.”
“So what can you do?”
“If your ex-husband isn’t employed, I can’t do much. How does he support himself?”
“I don’t know for sure but I am just surprised that he doesn’t pay.”
“Ma’am, I am not sure why you are surprised. If he didn’t support his family during your marriage, why would he do so now?”
She couldn’t answer my question because she didn’t even know why she supported her lazy ex-husband for twenty years. Not only was she a mother to her children, she was also one to him. He wasn’t motivated to work because she didn’t require him to. Following their divorce, he still refused to work or support his family. So why was she so shocked that he would pay after they divorced? He wasn't doing anything differently from when they were married. The problem is that men think that they can't change while women think they can change their man.
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