Because I tend to watch a lot of sports on television, I see a great many commercials. Now, like many of you, I often get up to grab a snack or, um, visit the little room down the hall during those breaks in the action. Sometimes, though, I just sit there watching and waiting for the game to come back on.
Hey, I'm a guy. I'm not that complicated. If the game's on, I'm not hungry or I don't need to, you know, visit the little room down the hall, I'll just sit there with a stupid look on my face, thinking about, well, nothing in particular.
The other day I was cemented to my easy chair and saw a commercial for an insurance company (what are the chances, right?) . I'm guessing you've seen it, too. It's not the one with that goofy chick, Flo, or the one with the talking lizard (I know, I know, it's not a lizard). It was a serious one that shows a woman witnessing someone doing a good deed for her. Then she, in turn, does a good deed for someone else, who does a good deed for someone else ... and so on, and so on.
I think they call that "paying it forward."
Anyway, I like that commercial. Now, granted, I'm getting older almost every day (notice I said "almost") and given my middle-agedness, I'm much softer (physically and mentally) than I used to be. Consequentially, that commercial almost brings a tear to my eye, just seeing all those people helping each other; seeing all those people making the proper decision to advance humanity rather than checking out and gazing at an app on a smartphone.
I say "almost" because it was a 60 second commercial, not a two-hour movie. A good movie can still make me cry. With a TV commercial, even a good one, I'm still aware it's advertising something.
Still, that ad had an impact on me. It didn't cause me to race to the phone to buy more insurance, but it did make me think about people helping others. And not only did I like how that made me feel, I love that particular concept.
Not to get all philosophical on you here, but I believe there is good in everyone. I believe we're all hard-wired to care and when we reach out to others something syncs with our internal code and we run a little smoother.
On the other hand, if we get too focused to "me" instead of "we," our systems begin to lag. It's kind of like a slow-moving virus. It doesn't -- BAM! -- crash us right away. Instead it gradually robs us of speed and efficiency and compatibility, until the day we're finally forced to see something is wrong.
When that happens, we usually need to do a little back-tracking. Sometimes we just need to reboot the system, but sometimes it means doing something bigger in order to fix the problem. If we're lucky, all we need to do is download a critical upgrade. Unfortunately, sometimes we need major repairs.
Well, it looks like I've pretty much beaten that analogy into the ground, so I'll try to slap a bow on this thing and we can call it good.
Bottom line: Being human means we make mistakes, but it also means we're part of humanity. Making a mistake is one thing, but denying our own humanity is something completely different. So, do like the commercial says and be responsible. Hopefully it will cause them to pay it forward ... and so on, and so on, and so on.
I promise if you do, you'll feel better about yourself, and that's a good thing to think about while you're sitting there during the next commercial break.
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