Have you ever watched as a drop of dye was added to clear water? It's remarkable the way it diffuses and ends up influencing a large area around it. What happens when you add a second? Still makes a difference, but it isn't as poignant as the first. If you keep adding drops, each successive one makes a smaller and smaller difference. At some point you could dump an entire bottle in and no one would notice or care. Now why is this relevant in today's world? One large answer is swearing. I remember vividly the only time I ever heard my father swear (to be fair, it was not in anger but as an explanation). But when what should be a rarity becomes a common occurrence, the meaning is lost. The people who swear the most are the people who cannot use it for making a strong point. What they want to say gets lost amidst the occurrences of the past.
Now swearing isn't the only example of this: I have the same problem at work, in politics and in many other situations.
At work we get calls so many times saying "This is urgent! We really need this to get out or this customer will be in shutdown!" So many times we get another call from that same person: "Never-mind, cancel all that work you did, since the customer doesn't really need it now." How many times does that happen before the trust relationship is broken?
We elect officials to represent us, or reelect them, and they make promises to us and do not deliver. This happens all around America, to the point that Congress has approval ratings in the teens. That means that 80% of Americans do not like the job that Congress is doing. Why then do we elect people that seem to maintain the status quot or make it worse? And when we finally elect people who will stand up for their principles, they get ridiculed and mocked publicly. The messages of many congressman has gotten washed out, and we know it! Yet it continues to happen.
Now I urge you to rethink what an emergency is. To rethink what being angry means and what points you want you or those who represent you to make, then reserve your choicest words and reserves for those situations that need it most. Don't let what's important get washed out by a sea of redundancy.
