chickenfickle

You, yeah you. Get off your high horse, climb down from your soapbox and save me your holier than thou attitude. Do you really expect me to believe that you’ve never gotten in the ten item or less lane with twelve items? Right. And you’ve never turned on red in a no turn on red lane. Nor have you ever mailed something to a different address or used another email to get a deal on something that was limit one per. Nope, not you. And not me either.

Or so we would all like each other to believe. We’re very quick to judge and decide what’s right and wrong and usually, it’s pretty black and white. But what about the gray areas? When is it ok, if ever, to do something that isn’t 100% right but not 100% wrong either? Does it matter the intent or is right always right? If no one gets hurt or no one minds, then is it ok? If a tree falls and no one hears it, does it make a sound? If no one cares that you did something “wrong” is it still “wrong?”

Well, it’s hard to say, isn’t it? Let’s say that you had really good intentions for doing something but the means by which you took to achieve that end were maybe not so honest. Does that make it ok? Do you have to be accountable? I admit, I’ve done some things that would fall into the gray area. My husband does not use hand cream. But, I made him like a page to get a free tube for me. Now I have two tubes. Did I hurt anyone? No. Was he entitled to it? Technically, yes. But, it really was for me and I already got mine. So that leaves me with a conundrum. If one of my kids were to ask me about it, what would I tell them? I wanted two (because a girl can never have too much hand cream) so I made Daddy get one, too. Is that right? 

It’s funny how your kids change you, when you have little eyes watching you all the time. You would do anything for them and sometimes that means doing things that aren’t right. Or does it? Because now, you have to be a role model for them. So when you do something for them, you have to think about what you are teaching them. If you caught them doing something wrong, you would, I hope, correct them. But what about when they see you doing something wrong, even if it’s for them? What are you teaching them? “Well, sonny, I did that for you.” You tell your kids not to smoke and you’d be pissed to see them do it, but when you’re out alone, you smoke and have an Altoid. You tell your kids not to swear (“Watch that potty mouth, mister”) but that bitch pulled out of nowhere so what could you do but flip her off? And you tell your kids to not cheat but then you go to great lengths to be sure they win a contest. You had the best intentions but if they ask, what do you say? How do you justify that? Gray.

Maybe it’s the season right now, that we are all supposed to be thinking of our fellow man that makes me feel this. But it’s also the reason that I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. Why wait until the new year to do something better? Just do it now. Don’t put off your diet, don’t wait to start exercising, don’t wait to be a better person in any way. Especially if you have little eyes watching you. There’s not enough Windex that could clean away that clouded image. Even mine.