Living through an American Recession

Dealing with never ending life changes. Who says making lemonade is the best thing to do with those lemons life throws at you?

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Rebel without a cause

What is a rebel without a cause? Wouldn't the thing that caused the person to rebel be the cause? Perhaps this person is just doing his thing.

It always bothered me when people called me a rebel. Looking up the words actual meaning to see if I actually qualify as a rebel, it states:

A rebel is a person who participates in a rebellion.
A rebellion is a refusal of obedience in order aimed at replacing or destroying an established authority.

I would never consider myself to be a rebel according to social description. I have been labeled this only for the fact that I question things in life that I don't understand to be relevant to the situation. In no means have I ever wanted to destroy or replace authority or refuse to follow rules or laws.

Laws and rules are in place to provide consistency, flow and fairness for everyone. It eliminates favoritism and confusion allowing maximum function. Take stop signs for example. On a small road with minimal people converging at the same time, a stop sign is appropriate. Without one, people would decide that they should go first judging their situation to be more important than the other person going left. Putting up a stop sign and establishing rules that go with that sign are in place to stop possible bad situations from happening so everyone has an equal shot at going next.

But what happens when there is now too much traffic for everyone to stop? It now becomes a  problem interfering with the flow and creating traffic jams hence no longer serving it's purpose. The city must now listen to the complaints of the people, reassess the situation and create a new solution to the problem if one is needed and act. A traffic light is born.

When I was a kid I did't understand why I had to use a yellow #2 pencil vs. my .05 mechanical pencil or a green #2 that consisted of the same graphite?

Why do my red tennis shoes bother you? This isn't Catholic school. You're wearing blue.

Why does it matter that a man's hair can't touch his collar in a business office? I can clearly see how that would totally interfere with his accounting abilities. Or why woman had to wear skirts and blouses in a business office. How the hell can you be a good secretary wearing pants?

My response is always the same when I hear someone comment about being a rebel.
"Oh yeah, I can see how that's completely relevant to the situation. Where's the rebellion that they are leading?"

Perhaps any situation that causes an uprising should be assessed of the relevancy of it's laws and/or rules that govern it given current circumstances. People by nature are not mean nor rebellious. Our very nature is to just live and exist. People want fairness and equality not conflict and hardship.

When people complain about something it usually means it isn't working for them. Whether we live in small towns and huge cities, work for small businesses or large corporations, these "rebels" are everywhere. A simple woman like me sees a dysfunction in the flow and instantly becomes a rebel. Is an engineer a "rebel", a politician, a lobbyist, a priest?

Maybe we are all rebels at one point or another all seeking a better world.
  

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