Consequences

There is a lot of value placed on education, in our society, by our parents, by ourselves. In my home, education is pretty much assumed. You will graduate high school, you will go to college, you will be educated. What we miss from our education though is the big picture. The way it all fits into our lives and improves our abilities to function in society (or in our families, or online, or in a relationship).

For example, we learn that every action has a equal and opposite reaction. If you push a door, the door also pushes you. Now what we don't realize is we've been applying this law (Newton's 3rd law of motion) our whole lives. We just didn't know we were. For example, we are able to adjust the force we use against a door to push harder if the door is pushing harder against us than we are against it. (Ta da!) So we sit in science or math or whatever class you are learning this in and we work the problems and we scratch our heads and wonder why this even needed to BE a law (unlike gravity, which absolutely must remain a law ;) ) and we don't realize that we prove this law every single time we do something, or every time something else does something, or every time our dog does something.

It would be better if our education was tailored to show just how much it applies to our lives. I would also be better if our education would cover other important topics and not just the three R's (of which one is not an R but an A and can I just say that knowing that fact has been driving me absolutely crazy my whole life. I don't care if it sounds better, the fact is, there are not three R's....ugh...)

Okay so what if we learned more about consequences. What if we had entire classes on these kinds of things (Like ethics??? quiet down you in the back....) starting when we were younger. What if we didn't have to go to college to learn things like ethics.

What if, instead of teaching Timmy that hitting is bad, we explain why. Not just "Hitting is bad because it hurts" but "Hitting is bad because it hurts, and you don't want to be hurt, and neither does Jimmy. Not to mention, you've encroached on his rights and safety and now he doesn't know if you are a stable person or not. He probably won't hang out with you tomorrow because you have shown that you can lose your temper and get violent"...okay now I sound like a pansy.

Either way, consequences. We don't teach them enough. We don't study them enough. We create adults who can't figure out what the hell they are, why they keep creeping up in their lives, and why they have to suffer them when they "don't wanna!!!"

So here is a consequence lesson:

If you make a decision, it has both positive and negative consequences. BOTH. Yes, both. Always. Yes, Always. Always. (Stop trying to think of one that is only positive, there is no such decision).

You can choose to cross the street. The good consequences are: You are now further down the street, you may be closer to your goal, you may have arrived at your destination, you have exercised today, you may be in a safer spot. The bad consequences are: You risked your life to cross the street, you may have been hit by a car, you may be further from your destination, you may have taken a wrong turn, you have increased your fatigue, you may have walked into a dangerous situation.

You can choose to play the lottery. The good consequences are: You won! WOOT You're rich. The bad consequences are: You may have lost and that money was needed for bread,  you may have won and now your relatives want you to finance their lives. Your chances of being robbed have increased.


See? Consequences exist for every decision. No matter what decision you make, you have to decide whether or not the good consequences outweigh or are worth the bad. For some people, winning the lottery outweighs the family drama. For others, it doesn't.

Now I know it will drive my mother nuts that I am basically stating there is no right or wrong (I'm not) but the truth is, only you can know what consequences you're willing to deal with.

For me, going to school was worth the lack of sleep, lack of time with my family, and insane cost of education. For others, not so much. That doesn't make me better than them, that just makes their choice different than mine.

Recently I've had to take a closer look at consequences. Mainly because I wasn't doling them out appropriately. I was trying to avoid forcing people to pay the consequences for their behavior. Much like a parent tries to make decisions for their children because they have the ability to see the bigger picture. I can see if my daughter skips school that she will struggle to find a future that allows her the earning potential she needs to survive. She doesn't see that...

Lately, I've been allowing consequences to fall where they will for people in my life (primarily because my therapist kicked my ass until I stopped trying to save people from themselves). It has been hard. Very hard to see someone I love hurting when I could have prevented the situation. I got through it, so did they.

Consequences happen regardless of whether you try to stop them or not. It is hard to watch people struggle with the consequences, but if they don't struggle and get through it, they will never be able to function as adults.

And that is just one of the things they don't teach us in school.