Blaming The Audience

Can you believe this? A girl falls into a manhole while texting. You may have seen an earlier blog on our frustration with rude texters, so this one caught my attention. After finding out that the girl only suffered a few scrapes I was relieved, although I was frustrated that she wasn't paying attention to where she was walking-in other words she wasn't being a good ringmaster of her circus (texting is the wrong act for your lineup while walking).

What really raised my eyebrow, however, was learning that her family plans to sue the city! She and her family accept no responsibility for the young lady's action. What if she had been walking toward a cliff and fallen over it because she was texting. Who would be blamed in that incident?

While I wanted to be angry with the teen and her family, I had to be honest with myself. There are numerous times I seek to blame other circumstances for a less than successful circus lineup. It might be a person, an organization, the economy or other external factor. Focusing on those factors saves me from the tough task of analyzing my own poor judgment, laziness or just bad timing. It's almost like blaming the audience for a less than successful performance because they didn't cheer enough.

What about you? As you reflect on the current challenges in your circus, who or what are you blaming instead of evaluating your own performance as the ringmaster of your circus?

Trying to juggle elephants can be VERY painful!

Ouch!!! See if you can determine the common factor involved in the following accidents:

• A 30 year old walks into a stop sign
• A 15 year old girl falls off her horse, suffering head and back injuries
• A 13 year old suffers stomach, leg and arm burns while cooking

Here's a hint: SSINF. That's right. They were all injured while texting with their cell phones. It's not just a habit of teenagers. An adult aide to a presidential candidate fell off a curb this Summer while texting. There are also documented cases of adults being killed due to being hit by automobiles while texting and crossing the road. You can get the entire article from the Greensboro News and Record here.

Dr. Patrick Walsh, an emergency physician in Bakersfield, CA is a texter, but sums up the dilemma quite nicely: "We think we're multitasking, but we're not. You're focusing on one task for a split second, then focusing on another one, and with something moving 40 miles an hour like a car. It just takes a couple of seconds to be hit."

I often laugh at others who struggle to get everything done, and I have highlighted the physical, mental and emotional dangers of overextending yourself in previous blogs. I have also been in situations more than once where someone's texting was quite distracting or even unsafe. I got an employee at a fast food restaurant in trouble because I reported him to his manager for trying to text and take my order at the same time!

The act of texting while driving, walking, biking, etc. however is one that is much too dangerous to make a part of anyone's lineup. If you are too busy to stop and focus on one task for even a few seconds-you're just too busy.

A quote in Juggling Elephants is, "There is no shortage of acts for the circus." Just because you can add it, doesn't mean you always should. I can't imagine anyone starting their day or week by saying, "My purpose is to put my life in danger because I want to text someone anytime I want."

Our goal is that you always be AAS. If you need some help with texting vocabulary, click here.