Sunday, December 11, 2005

Highly Defective People Pt 1

Doug Giles over at townhall.com has been doing a series where he outlines some habits of highly defective people. In his last entry he kind of sums up the series with a list of 20 maxims to live by in order to maximize your defectiveness in life and help you to be an unproductive citizen. I will break them up and comment on them the next few days.

1. Allow people who mock you to influence what you should do in life.

2. Distress should weaken you not strengthen you.

This one, I suppose, would go against the Biblical teaching that we should consider it pure joy when we face trials of many kinds. Anyone else feel like giving up in the face of difficulty? To be defective, you should just give up.

3. Little minds shrink when opposed.

I don't know if this is the same as when I get all nervous when I am talking to someone in authority. I don't even have to be opposed..."What is your name?"...What? Who, me?

4. When you get knocked down, stay down.

Assuredly more easy. Want to live a lowly life, stay down...much less conflict if you don't go fighting things. Less people bug you, no one expects much from you after a while...

5. Don’t allow your conscience the right to approve of your conduct; that could cause you to turn and go in a noble direction when what you should really do is to quit.

Any patterns? Give up when the going gets rough. It can be difficult not to give in to that temptation sometimes. But remember evil prevails when good people do nothing.

Derrick

3 comments:

D.B. said...

Hey Russ, thanks for posting. Did you mean to say spiritually and mentally applicable? Or something like that? If so, I would agree.

How we view ourselves is how others view us as well...hmmm. I think that is true sometimes. I do not know that it is always the case. I think many of us use masks to hide how we view ourselves...or maybe that is just me projecting onto others.

I think it is the case that it is difficult to know how (or who) someone is without without repeated contact with a person. FOr example, when someone is quiet and does not talk, it can be easy for people to come up with how they think a person is, even if they don't really know 'cause the person never shared.

I know for me, it can take a while to feel safe enough to share with people. Plus, I will not always share things about myself until someone asks me. It is a difficult thing for me to open up sometimes. Now, I would want to add that this is referring to verbal communication. I think I am less likely to hold back while using written communication...There is less a chance for rejection... :-)

Thanks again for posting. I hope I actually responded to what you were meaning to say, and not just some rambling monologue.

Derrick

Anonymous said...

Being of a defective nature myself at times, just defective, not the highly qualified super turbo defective kind mentioned by Mr Giles, I have to strive to overcome the pull toward mediocrity..the draw to give up and settle for less. It takes a lot of focused energy to continually move forward. The will to better oneself as well as the world we live in grows placid at times..have to really sit back and reassess what is good and beautiful and REAL!! Catch a breath, look around, jump up and GO!! Life is good, and relatively easy most days...but opposition looms on the sidelines always. Did someone say something about rambling? Derrick, was that you??

D.B. said...

Heh heh...Thanks for your post. I don't know what you are talking about. I'm sure I don't ramble. I do agree with your post that it can be difficult to resist the pull toward mediocrity.

Derrick