Unintended consequences, things we meant to make our society better don’t always make it better.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

There are downsides to everything; there are unintended consequences to everything. Steve Jobs

I’m reading, “The 11 Laws of Likability” by Michelle Tillis Lederman. We may say I don’t care what someone thinks of us but deep down and often not very deeply being liked is very high on our list.

We don’t like hearing criticism – even if it is warranted, but when it is not warranted we feel picked on and unfairly treated. It is easy in life to take offense, and it is easy to give offense, but if we are to live together in harmony we can’t pick apart everything someone does to look for an offense. Looking for micro-aggressions is not a good way to live.

Things have been done in the past that were terrible and should never have happened, but they did happen and no one no matter how badly they treat someone in the present can make up for what was done in the past.

If we had a relationship with someone that treated us badly and then every relationship after that we treat people badly we haven’t made anything better, in fact, we’ve made it worse. Instead of going forward in a new wonderful relationship and life, we’ve carried the old hurt and brought it with us to the new relationship and created our own hell.

Forgiveness is a powerful force and if we are strong enough to use it, it is our life that gets better, not the person we’ve forgiven. If we hold onto old hurts and mistreatments then we carry them with us where ever we go and they color our world day and night. If we expect the worst from people we often get it, and everyone but us sees the chip on our shoulder we are unwilling to put down.

The law of unintended consequences is the only real law of history. Niall Ferguson

We are fortunate to live in a time when we can leave a relationship that doesn’t work for us. We can leave a job. We can have many careers in our lifetime searching for the one that fits us best. What we can’t do, what no one has ever been able to do is make other people act the way we want them to.

We can live with them or work with them and like it, we can live with them or work with them and hate it, or we can leave. Those are our choices and we haven’t always had those choices, we couldn’t always leave but in this day and age we can. What we may not be able to do is find circumstances that never make us feel bad, disrespected, overlooked, judged, unappreciated, or wrongfully accused of things we haven’t done.

In many ways, we have come so far with people having rights that they are weaponizing their rights. Men choose not to get married because they are worried women will marry them for what they have and then take half, and that they only married them for this reason, not that they entered into the relationship in good faith and things didn’t work out.

Proverbs 21: 9-19 says “It is better to live in a corner of a roof than in a house shared with a contentious woman. The soul of the wicked desires evil; His neighbor finds no favor in his eyes.”

I don’t believe this is reserved only for men, or only for marriage. Dealing with contentious people is difficult and what if everyone that has choice leaves and only the contentious are left to deal with each other?

In many ways, society has gotten better, but one of the things we are doing that is not good is we are rewarding bad behavior and we are reaping a bitter harvest. This happens in the divorce court, the workplace, and our schools.

There are people who will never be given enough. Some men and women do their best to make their unhappy spouses happy, but we can’t make someone else happy. We can’t fix someone else’s insecurities; we can only work on our own. There are people who will never think their piece of the pie is big enough. They will never get enough unless they figure out what will fill the hole in their heart and life.

Jim Rohn tells us, “Don’t ask for life to be easy, ask to be better.” We need to be careful that in our zeal to make things better, we aren’t looking for problems where they aren’t, or making small ones worse.

The sum of all of us is the sum of our society. We all count; we all are responsible in some way for the progression or deterioration of our society. Perfection is the enemy of the good; we will never have a perfect society where everyone treats everyone else exactly like they’d like to be treated. Everyone will not always make the best choice so they do the best they can in life. We will make mistakes and people will take advantage of programs we put in to help make things better.

It’s fair that a spouse should get half of what a couple has worked a lifetime for, but marriage shouldn’t be a way to get half of what someone else worked for. My husband and I tell each other if something happens to either of us, “Don’t you dare bring someone in to get half of what we worked a lifetime for.” Whoever is left needs to build something with the new person, if they find a new person, but we want what we built, our half, to go to our kids, but not until our spouse is finished with it. Of course, no one controls things from the grave.

Wherever we go, there we are, and how we look at life colors the life we look at. Wayne Dyer tells us, “When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change.” Are there some things we need to look at differently? Do we have unintended consequences working in our society? Things we meant for good are backfiring? What can we do to fix things, which will undoubtedly bring about more unintended consequences?

One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results. Milton Friedman

Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful. Margaret J Wheatley

Fear makes come true that which one is afraid of. Victor E. Frankl

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.