Reap What You Sow, and Shut Up About It!

Life is full of choices, and those choices have consequences. You are free to choose whatever you want, but when you do don’t sit there and whine about the consequences of making that choice.

This past weekend was Independence Day in the US, and Philadelphia, as always, had a huge celebration. I don’t know how any hundreds of thousands of people attended, but it was a lot. The area around the Art Museum (near where I live) was packed with a ton of people. And a lot of these people drove in.

Here’s the thing: Though these people all drove in at various times over the course of the day, they all needed to leave at around the same time. And when you combine waaaaaay more cars than the city can handle, with a large number of single and two-lane city streets, with a serious number of streets being closed off for the festivities, with throngs of people walking everywhere, you get TRAFFIC JAMS!

As I walked home after the celebration (well, I walked back during the fireworks because I didn’t care about watching them) I got a first hand up close view of the hell that was “trying to leave the city of Philadelphia at the end of the 4th of July.”

Wow.

Traffic was backed up for blocks. And it wasn’t moving at all, since thousands upon thousands of people were walking back to their cars, and since pedestrians have the right of way, the cars weren’t moving at all. When there was a gap in the pedestrian migration, traffic was further slowed by cars trying to enter the flow of traffic from their parking spots.

Chaos!

And then, as expected, it happened: People started honking their horns.

What.

The.

Heck?!?

Really? Really?? You really need to honk your horn? You’re sitting in a pile of traffic. You know exactly why there is traffic. You know everyone is trying to get home, just like you are. Do you honestly believe honking your horn is is going to do anything other than raise everyone else’s agitation level?

(Note: If you answered yes to that question, you should turn in your driver’s license and have yourself neutered so you can’t procreate and pass along your idiotic rage to the next generation)

Here’s the other thing: You had to know that if you stuck around until the end of the show that traffic leaving the city would be a nightmare.

(Note, if you didn’t realize this, then please see above advice about getting neutered)

Life is filled with examples of people who make decisions and then whine about what happens as a result. And that is just stupid.

If you want to be successful and not be annoying, you have two options:

1) Make better decisions

If you don’t want to deal with the traffic, leave the city much earlier, hang around and leave the city much later, or plot an alternate route out of the city.

In all decisions, think about the outcome you want to achieve and then make a decision that’s going to move you towards it. (yes, I am referring to one of the steps in the step by step process to improvising with anything.

2) Accept the consequences of your decision, and stop whining (honking) about it.

Sometimes you are going to think about the consequences of your actions and realize that the benefit is worth the cost. Great! Go for it! Just shut up about it afterward!

We really do live in a world of choice. If you want to stick around to the end of the concert to watch Sheryl Crow cover “Rock and Roll” by Led Zeppelin, then go right ahead (yeah, it happened. It was…interesting. Not bad. Just…interesting). And if you want to watch fireworks, then be my guest. But don’t complain about the fact that you are now stuck in the traffic jam you knew you would face.

Likewise, if you want to eat an entire bag of Doritos with Salsa con Queso sauce mixed with Sirracha hot sauce (not that I would know anything about this) don’t complain when you don’t lose any weight. If you don’t apply for better jobs, don’t complain about how crappy your current one is. And if you go out and get drunk, don’t whine about being hungover.

I realize that some people just like to whine and complain, regardless of whether they brought it upon themselves. That is called, “being a dumbass.” If this is you, hold on a second; I think I have Bob Barker’s number. He can give you some great advice on getting spayed and neutered…