Definition of Insanity...And Other Intense Insights
I always look forward to sleeping in on Saturday mornings. Call it laziness...whatever...I never will be an early morning person. That's "Bullet Point Number One"--something I need to say to preface what's coming. Bullet Point Number Two is this: I am NOT a neat-nic...our house gets messy (sometimes annoyingly messy), so I'd be the last person to get too critical or snooty about someone else having junk lying around. My parents were neat-freaks (sorry if that seems disrespectful, but I remember when Mom had TWO cleaning ladies coming in to take care of the house on opposite days...I.E. one on Monday, one on Tuesday...to keep the house practically looking like a museum). While I greatly enjoy clean, uncluttered spaces, in my family, we're just not super-well organized.
At any rate, Saturday morning, much to my chagrin, I heard our dog "going nuts" because someone had come over early and was knocking insistently at the door. I got dressed and went to answer it. It was someone we knew...she was quite agitated...and said she needed to speak to my wife--that it was an emergency. So I invited her in, got Franci up, and we found out that she was having some heart trouble. Her heart was racing, she was having some pain and pressure, and there was obviously a problem. My wife took her to the emergency room at the hospital, and my daughter and I had to get a hold of her husband and let him know what was going on.
First, I called...but no one answered the phone...apparently, they had it unplugged.
Second, we went over there and knocked--both on the front door and the back door...no one would come to the door.
Third, I OPENED THE DOOR and hollered for the husband...no one answered---two of their kids (LITTLE kids) were laying on the couch rigth inside the door. They pretended to be asleep, and even tried to keep up the pretense after I shook them to wake them up (like they'd been trained to ignore people at the door when their parents were sleeping). If I had been the Avon lady or the Mormons, I could understand ignoring the door. But here I was knocking, yelling "it's an emergency", and OBVIOUSLY having an urgent need to talk to somebody...and they were going to ignore me???
Fourth: I got the little boy awake (the girl still was laying on her stomache acting like she was asleep...or perhaps she really WAS--perhaps she collapsed from exhaustion on the couch and was "dead to the world")...the little boy went to get his dad, then came back and informed me that his dad wasn't getting up. I stood there like and idiot...finally, I went in and knocked on the bedroom door...still no response. "It's an emergency" didn't work, so I finally announced "your wife is in the hospital". FINALLY, that got him. While he lay in bed, I had to go in and explain what was going on.
Fifth: We had to take their vehicle, since my wife went in our car. There were dirty pans on the floor of the vehicle, and they stank with something rotten...the smell was overpowering. When we pulled up at their house, there was trash and junk strewn all over the place--it looked like a dump.
Sixth: The house was a complete wreck...nearly all the furniture was broken, the carpet was filthy, there was a mountain of dirty clothes in back...they don't even HAVE a kitchen table to eat at. By the kitchen sink (amidst the dirty dishes) was a big bottle of roach spray--RIGHT BY the kitchen sink.
Seven: They have four beautiful little kids living in this squalor--no body had cleaned them up, changed them into their "jammies" and put them to bed the night before. Apparently, at least two of them never did go to bed until they just dropped some place. (The man said he got to bed at 5:30 in the morning...so go figure.) The oldest girl is rail thin...I wonder what and how often she eats. It took awhile to even find clothes (socks, shoes) to get them all dressed so we could leave.
Eight: Even though my wife was getting sick and felt awful (she caught my virus or something), we took all the kids to the house, bathed them, changed them, and fed the entire family...it was the least we could do.
NOW FOR THE "KICKER": THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MONEY! NOTHING!!! The husband brings home VERY good pay-checks. In fact, he makes more money than most people I know. So while this may have to do with poverty-mentality, this isn't a problem of not being able to do any better.
These people are out of control. They're whole life is lived based on what they feel like at the moment...and it's pathetic. I looked at all this, learned a few things, and got scared...it definitely taught me a lesson. You've heard before "if you want to be successful, then do what successful people do." Well, I'm finding that this same principle applies to many things in life...if you want to be normal, then do what normal people do: go to bed at a decent hour, pick up after yourself, and take care of things. If you want to be a responsible person, then do what responsible people do: manage your time and money with your HEAD, not with how you feel at the moment, keep your word, and keep track of your things. If you want to be a saint, then do what saints do: take time to pray every day, study God's word, be consistent with things like fasting, paying tithes, giving offerings, and being in church, be careful how you act and talk (your witness), and do the Lord's work. If you want to be an adult, then do what adults do: do what needs to be done when it needs to be done, take charge of your life, and delay gratification for the greater good down the road. CHILDREN live for the moment, doing what feels good at the time, and basing their decisions on what they "want to" or "don't want to" do at the time. Overgrown children do this, too...and they keep doing it over and over and over again---going from jam to jam and from mess to mess...screwing up their finances, their jobs, their prospects, their relationships...and always wondering why their depressed and why things never seem to work out for them. Well, someone once said that insanity can be defined as doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result every time. Perhaps the opposite of this kind of insanity can be defined, also...it's called growing up!
At any rate, Saturday morning, much to my chagrin, I heard our dog "going nuts" because someone had come over early and was knocking insistently at the door. I got dressed and went to answer it. It was someone we knew...she was quite agitated...and said she needed to speak to my wife--that it was an emergency. So I invited her in, got Franci up, and we found out that she was having some heart trouble. Her heart was racing, she was having some pain and pressure, and there was obviously a problem. My wife took her to the emergency room at the hospital, and my daughter and I had to get a hold of her husband and let him know what was going on.
First, I called...but no one answered the phone...apparently, they had it unplugged.
Second, we went over there and knocked--both on the front door and the back door...no one would come to the door.
Third, I OPENED THE DOOR and hollered for the husband...no one answered---two of their kids (LITTLE kids) were laying on the couch rigth inside the door. They pretended to be asleep, and even tried to keep up the pretense after I shook them to wake them up (like they'd been trained to ignore people at the door when their parents were sleeping). If I had been the Avon lady or the Mormons, I could understand ignoring the door. But here I was knocking, yelling "it's an emergency", and OBVIOUSLY having an urgent need to talk to somebody...and they were going to ignore me???
Fourth: I got the little boy awake (the girl still was laying on her stomache acting like she was asleep...or perhaps she really WAS--perhaps she collapsed from exhaustion on the couch and was "dead to the world")...the little boy went to get his dad, then came back and informed me that his dad wasn't getting up. I stood there like and idiot...finally, I went in and knocked on the bedroom door...still no response. "It's an emergency" didn't work, so I finally announced "your wife is in the hospital". FINALLY, that got him. While he lay in bed, I had to go in and explain what was going on.
Fifth: We had to take their vehicle, since my wife went in our car. There were dirty pans on the floor of the vehicle, and they stank with something rotten...the smell was overpowering. When we pulled up at their house, there was trash and junk strewn all over the place--it looked like a dump.
Sixth: The house was a complete wreck...nearly all the furniture was broken, the carpet was filthy, there was a mountain of dirty clothes in back...they don't even HAVE a kitchen table to eat at. By the kitchen sink (amidst the dirty dishes) was a big bottle of roach spray--RIGHT BY the kitchen sink.
Seven: They have four beautiful little kids living in this squalor--no body had cleaned them up, changed them into their "jammies" and put them to bed the night before. Apparently, at least two of them never did go to bed until they just dropped some place. (The man said he got to bed at 5:30 in the morning...so go figure.) The oldest girl is rail thin...I wonder what and how often she eats. It took awhile to even find clothes (socks, shoes) to get them all dressed so we could leave.
Eight: Even though my wife was getting sick and felt awful (she caught my virus or something), we took all the kids to the house, bathed them, changed them, and fed the entire family...it was the least we could do.
NOW FOR THE "KICKER": THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MONEY! NOTHING!!! The husband brings home VERY good pay-checks. In fact, he makes more money than most people I know. So while this may have to do with poverty-mentality, this isn't a problem of not being able to do any better.
These people are out of control. They're whole life is lived based on what they feel like at the moment...and it's pathetic. I looked at all this, learned a few things, and got scared...it definitely taught me a lesson. You've heard before "if you want to be successful, then do what successful people do." Well, I'm finding that this same principle applies to many things in life...if you want to be normal, then do what normal people do: go to bed at a decent hour, pick up after yourself, and take care of things. If you want to be a responsible person, then do what responsible people do: manage your time and money with your HEAD, not with how you feel at the moment, keep your word, and keep track of your things. If you want to be a saint, then do what saints do: take time to pray every day, study God's word, be consistent with things like fasting, paying tithes, giving offerings, and being in church, be careful how you act and talk (your witness), and do the Lord's work. If you want to be an adult, then do what adults do: do what needs to be done when it needs to be done, take charge of your life, and delay gratification for the greater good down the road. CHILDREN live for the moment, doing what feels good at the time, and basing their decisions on what they "want to" or "don't want to" do at the time. Overgrown children do this, too...and they keep doing it over and over and over again---going from jam to jam and from mess to mess...screwing up their finances, their jobs, their prospects, their relationships...and always wondering why their depressed and why things never seem to work out for them. Well, someone once said that insanity can be defined as doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result every time. Perhaps the opposite of this kind of insanity can be defined, also...it's called growing up!
posted by Polar Bear T @ 2:43 PM
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