Did somebody steal Wednesday?
It was interesting to look down the street last night and see a couple of bins against the curb waiting for collection. It’s not an unusual sight but the odd thing was that it was a day early.
Thursday is ‘bin day’ around here so the bins usually start appearing on Wednesday evening. This week a couple of bins shuffled their way towards the road a day early. I imagine one over zealous person placed their bin out a day too soon and then someone else thought that they should do the same. They didn’t stop to think that it was too soon, they simply acted because someone else had. Interesting to note that one of those bins has already retreated and will probably reappear tonight at the usual time.
Have you ever done that thing when you and a friend or two start gazing and pointing towards the sky? It’s not long before everyone around is looking towards the heavens, wondering what it is they’re meant to be seeing. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to get people acting how you’d like them to act.
It’s very easy to throw away our own sense of reason and to just start following what everyone else is doing.
Ever hear those advertising clichés that say something like, “3 000 000 people can’t be wrong”? Their power of persuasion comes from the weight of numbers. We’re meant to think that if that many people are using the product or taking the same kind of action then it must be right. Unfortunately history is littered with large groups of people taking the wrong action.
2007 is rapidly drawing to a close. A new year is almost here.
I wonder what 2008 would look like if we all decided to think through our own actions instead of simply following the crowd. Imagine how different it would be if we all started to take responsibility for our own actions rather than relying on the decisions of others.
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