About a Verb and a Slogan

You don’t understand how men work. We don’t give each other gifts. We pretty much ignore each other ’til somebody scores a touchdown. - Red Forman, That '70s Show

Rarely are purely things impressionable. Cars, computers, phones, clothes, jewelry, cigars, wine ... Those are nouns. Nouns have little impact in the real world.

Oh, preferences on things are fine and warranted. But, I’ll take the verb any day.

Phone is a noun. Texting and posting is a verb.
Wine is a noun. Tasting is a verb.
Paint and canvas are nouns. Painting is a verb.
Thai Food is a noun. Cooking is involved and requires action (a verb). Eating is a verb. Sharing is an even better one.
The yard and a garden are nouns. Mowing and planting and growing are verbs.

This culture has it backwards. We should care more about actions, happenings, interaction, and change. Seek experiences and events, not the noun itself.

Take a car, for example. Look at a 1965 Silver Cloud Rolls Royce. It is a beautiful car, no doubt. But it holds little value as a noun. It sits in a garage. It is a lump of metal worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. But, throw in a verb (the action) and DRIVE it. Road-trip it with your mom and dad from Palm Springs to the mid-west, and that evokes stories and memories.

Diamonds. They are expensive pieces of carbon. They are worth a monetary value based on a set criteria (the four C’s). Yet, shopping for them, seeking out the perfect gem that speaks to you is an adventure. Finding the diamond holder (the ring) and feeling the adrenaline rush before “Yes”, that is the experience.

MasterCard has it right. Sort of. There are indeed some things money can’t buy. For everything else, well, you know. The concept here is that people don’t always buy stuff for the stuff itself but more often than not get it for the immaterial meanings that attach itself to or are expressed by the stuff.

Verbs, indeed, are priceless.

Touchdown!

Ouch! ... Thank you, Sir. May I Have Another.

They are the same problems only bigger. So, we’re told we must work harder. Now hard work is good work. But continuously banging a head against a wall is just stupid.

School Districts are required to meet budget. So, the Board lays off teachers, grow class sizes, and ask the remaining teachers to work harder.

The database at work is still in disarray after years and years of (un)coordinated attempts. Yet, people work harder to force in more data. Same ‘ol, same ‘ol.

The fastest route to work for the morning commute is clogged due to construction in town. The double lanes have been reduced down to one, long, slow moving line. Deal with it!

Lecturing teenage kids about cleaning up after they have finished with some project or snack has little effect. So, lecturing harder is the result. Apparently, teenagers are hard of hearing.

A bottle of wine recently purchased was corked, both of them. Is there a risk in buying another bottle of the same wine from the winery again?

Conversations with an individual are continuously hostile, but necessary. It is the same issues, same results every time.

Stop! This is stupid. Simply trying harder using the same old methods doesn’t solve the problem when the results stay the same. If banging a head against the wall is the routine, banging harder isn’t the answer. Try something different.

School Districts could do with some creative budgeting in these hard times. Old, stale, budgeting tricks of cutting dollars where it hurts the kids most is wrong. Handicapping teachers is counterproductive and it is making the quality of the kid’s education worse. The classroom environment needs more, not less. Yet, options such as parcel taxes and furloughs remain taboo subjects and disregarded. As a parent, I’d gladly front another $20 on a parcel tax and I’d think the communities would be wise enough to understand a quality K-12 education is a huge community asset.

We’ve been haphazardly filing data in a database system for years. It isn’t all that reliable. But, it isn’t a broken database program. It is the process for inputting the data that needs changing. The change is in HOW the data is implemented..

After 9 years at the same job, the car practically drives itself to and from work on its own. If there was ever an autopilot for an automobile, this commute would be a prime example. However, there ARE other routes around the new construction with only a minute or two of difference. And, 15 minutes earlier the traffic is amazingly light.

The kids hear “Blah blah blah, Ginger. Blah blah blah, Ginger”. The lecture has lost its luster. So, the tact is changing (while remaining calmer and preserving some sanity at the same time).

The cork is losing its romance as “corked” bottles (those that smell like a wet basement or socks after a morning workout) seem to be more prevalent these days. The purchasing power is currently aligning with that of the screwcap and synthetic corks. There ARE other choices than opening a stinky bottle of wine.

The point is: doing the wrong thing harder is not the answer. Go ahead if you desire. Bang your head against the wall with greater force. But, I say that is wrong option. Think outside the box. Be creative. Try something different. Because what’s happening right now is not working and it hurts.