Pay attention to your surroundings...use your noodle

So I have come to realize that the majority of people are completely oblivious to their surroundings. You know what I mean...they don't use their rear view mirror while driving (while texting usually), they push their cart really slow while blocking the whole aisle at the store while looking for the Special K in the cracker aisle, they hold up everyone while boarding a plane so they can make sure their huge carry on is situated just so and they have their book and hand sanitizer close at hand, they take their time loading their change into their change purse while you wait and watch before you can order your latte....you get the picture...and I am getting worked up, so lets continue.


This phenomena gets real scary when we require the general public to make big decisions...like the local election...the vast majority of people don't bother to read up on the issues, and just take the 30 second sound bite from the radio news as the full story on an issue...and the media person is in such a competition for your attention he/she is less interested in delivering the info we need to know, and more interested in grabbing your attention with controversy and buzz words. For example, How many people know that our government is on track to spend 50% of its budget on health care by 2015 (that's only 5 years away!)...and the problem will get worse as our "boomers" continue to retire...and our current anti bacterial, hypochondriac, pandemic fearing tendencies have set us up to run to the health care system every time we have an ache or pain!

There are really complicated and important issues facing our society and we need to be informed and use our collective voice to make sure these issues are addressed. Environmental issues, the demographic time bomb ... these issues will be politically difficult, expensive and long term issues to deal with; so we need to Pay Attention!

It doesn't take hours of study, we have the web and social media...technology makes being informed easier than it ever has been, yet we are getting more detached from each other. It just takes some interest in your fellow human...it comes down to caring about what others are doing/saying...if we let the business men and politically motivated make all the decisions for us, we'll get deeper into the hole.

And then he stepped down from the soap box and went back to work....