Exercises in Futility
Sometimes, you try to help people.
You try to be constructive and offer helpful information.
And then you realize you’re probably participating in an exercise in futility and are just the latest in a line of people to try to help, only to end up feeling like they are banging their heads against the wall.
I won’t go into specifics, but let’s say that you encounter someone driving a rickety-old car around town. It runs. It runs rather well. But, it was built in an era before windshields, so it has none. Nor does it have a paint job. It’s bare bones metal. It has no airbags and no seat belts. The seats are uncomfortable and the trunk is too small to even carry a spare tire.
A dwindling number of people will even ride in it as a passenger anymore. Those that do mainly do it for the nostalgia and little else.
The old car is expensive to maintain. It costs about five to ten times as much to keep it running as it would to run a newer car.
Despite this, the car owner thinks the car is the top of the class and that to switch to a modern car–you know, a car with windows, windshield wipers, paint, bumpers, seat belts, airbags, comfortable seats, cup holders and a decent-sized trunk–would be a downgrade.
The car owner seems to think the problem is with the passengers, and not with the car itself.
And, it is seemingly an exercise in futility to convince the car owner otherwise.
Well, I hate exercise in general. And my car isn’t that old (yet). But eventually that old-car owner is going to have to get a new one whether he wants to or not. Because eventually, they just stop running. Let’s hope his car gives out before he does.
HI DCR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!