© 2008 by Michael Swickard, Ph.D.
No matter how educated, I believe we all have a hint of superstition. Speaking for myself, I am superstitious about whatever happens at the beginning of a week. To my way of thinking it colors the rest of the week for me.
For example: One Monday a few years ago when I was working at the university I was heading to my office at 8:02 a.m. with a cup of coffee along with a substantial donut when one of the people in an office near me leaned out his door and said to me, “Hey Michael, happy Pig Day to you.”
I was startled by him and looked at the donut and thought, I do not have to take this kind of insult, especially since it is Monday and this would affect the whole week. Besides, as far as I was concerned the donut was generous but not overly so. I wrinkled my nose and replied in a real snotty voice, “Yeah, and you are a big bucket of dog spit.”
That got him. He looked stunned and then annoyed. Not surprisingly, he did not take my rejoinder well. In fact, he ducked back into his office in a huff.
When I got to my office I noticed on my calendar that it was officially National Pig Day. I realized he was not insulting my small but tasty donut and me. I tried to jolly him up but he remained huffy all day. That whole week I had similar problems of misunderstanding and blamed the Monday incident for all of my troubles.
I was thinking of this because Monday of this week I had another of those moments. No, I did not have a donut and it was not Pig Day. Rather, I was waiting at an optometrist’s office. A guy was standing at the counter trying to get a handle on the amount that his insurance was going to pay for the visit, and how it was figured. He seemed peeved so I listened to the exchange.
The clerk said rapidly, “It is simple. Take 31 percent of the 102 charge minus 38 percent of the charge established by the 42 percent first charge of the routine average charge in the aggregate seven-state average rate plus the national average by age and gender and then…”
Even though I was paying attention I had no idea what was being said. At that moment the clerk asked, “Do you understand now?”
“Lady,” the man said plaintively, “I am a math teacher and did not understand anything you said.”
Try as I might, I could not help laughing loudly. Everyone was peeved at me but I was stuck wondering how we can have a society that can send men to the moon but makes insurance so complicated that absolutely no one understands anything about it.
Many make things worse than they need to be
So for the rest of this week I have noticed more and more examples of people making things worse than they need to be. Of all of our societal maladies, that is No. 1 in my book. People at times make things harder than they need to be. Life is hard enough as it is, what with growing older and rounder and more forgetful, to name a few things. We get wise too late and old too soon.
One day the graduation speaker seems to be looking right at me while saying that we graduates of 1968 are tomorrow’s leaders, and then someone my own age, NBC newsman Tim Russert, dies suddenly. So suddenly I am asking myself if I have made things better in my short stay on this planet. The jury is out for me and done with Russert.
For my money that is the way to judge someone’s life: Has he or she made things as good as he or she could have? For many people that is their legacy, from Mother Teresa to Martin Luther King, Jr. These people in their short stay on this planet made things better.
Whatever we people do, I hope we can endeavor to make things better and not worse than they need to be. Whether we are driving or working or talking, it is what we must concentrate on. I am often in traffic and realize that a fellow driver is making it harder on another driver than it needs to be by cutting him or her off or obstructing his or her progress. Watched from the side you see these things and feel that it is nothing but shameful.
When I say make things better, it does not have to be lots better, just better. Every day in every way we need to make things better. We do so with the realization that the curtain can come down quickly on you, regardless of whether you are ready or not. If we put off doing the right things so that we can be remembered well, and then we die, we have lost an opportunity, regardless of your belief in heaven and hell.
Maybe I am too superstitious for my own good, but I am going to try hard from now on to make things better. I hope you do, too.
Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.