bad habits

so it's far too late to be blogging, but i've had this thought going through my head all day and i just have to get it down.

i think we all enhance each others' bad habits. by "we" i mean every single propriety-seeking member of society. we don't like awkwardness, so we avoid it all costs... often by covering for each other. we fill the silence after awkward comments, we smooth over rough language... we modify the consequences to make the actions seem less offensive.

we perpetuate the bad habits.

i'm not saying smoothing over is always bad at all -- sometimes social blunders are inevitable, and i thank The Big Guy for my friends and their wonderful ability to bail me out of my slippery tongue. however.... i feel like sometimes people develop a habit of saying things that are hurtful or awkward or downright strange, and because uncomfortable bystanders always smooth it over, the speaker never gets the appropriate feedback... and the comments continue.

if sarcastic people want to be sarcastic.. fine by me. i applaud the bravery and honesty, to be sure. but it's not the job of the rest of the world to cover for sarcasm, you know? ... i don't know, it's something i've noticed a lot lately. besides, if we cover for each other, things brood. the natural consequence of saying something rude or overly sarcastic and feeling awkward because of it is probably a lot more healthy than having to do some confronting later. embrace the consequences -- it's how we learn.

it's all of this behavior therapy training.. it's getting to me. we spend our days teaching little four year olds how to appropriately act because they don't process social feedback like their typical peers. like john -- he didn't understand that his friends didn't want to talk about his fixations all the time, so we had to teach him how to read people and time himself so as to maintain appropriate conversation. yeah, we could have "covered" for him... but then he wouldn't learn how to do it himself. "teach a man to fish..."

bottom line: i think we should embrace awkwardness more often. not in a bitter way, just in a healthy way. it's hard to learn from our mistakes when we never face any natural consequences. in a lot of things.

(mmm.. i feel a catechesis post coming. yay, bridgette is back.)

this whole post is choppy... i clearly need sleep :) gnite!