50 Shades of Brown

I am often dumbfounded at how stupid actions seem to have mild consequences. Making a poor choice and having to eat the consequences is how we learn. But it seems a lot of energy these days goes into teaching or steering young people to make better choices by assigning mild consequences. Why is this? What are they learning? They are unfortunately learning that if they make a mistake by being thoughtless, that they will get a “slap on the wrist” consequence and be told they shouldn’t do that. There is no motivation for them to think carefully next time BEFORE making a choice.

I’m not going to sit here and say that I never made stupid decisions. Trust me, I made them and learned. When I was 17, I was feeling very let down by a girl I had been dating and sped away from her home. Yep, 55 in a 30 zone. The police officer was nice enough about it, my parents were very firm with me, but the judge? She was downright evil. I used to smile whenever I was nervous. I was REALLY nervous in front of her. She thought I wasn’t taking speaking to her seriously. She gave me a huge fine (I should have just paid the ticket) and sent me to traffic school. Insurance went up, I was grounded for several months, it hurt. I made a STUPID choice and it hurt. Did I learn? Yes I did. Now I’m very careful when I have emotions going how I drive. That wasn’t the last ticket I ever received, but it was the worst, and most were rather small.

I saw that a large fire was burning in our community today and that several perpetrators were in custody. I’m curious how much that will hurt. To be honest, I’ll be surprised if they get a severe consequence. Why? I was reading about the boy who started the Columbia Gorge Fire back in 2017. The judge ordered that he pay $37 million, complete 1920 hours of community service, and write 150 letters of apology. Oh, and if he makes timely payments for 10 years, he doesn’t have to pay anymore. No jail time. We never get to know his name. He never gave up his friends names. Did the consequences hurt him? Kind of. But in proportion to the damage that he caused, not really.

What alarms me is that others are watching consequences. If someone steals a car, gets caught, pays a fine and is out the next day, does that hurt? Not much. People watch to see what the consequences are before doing something stupid. A good friend of mine reminded me recently of the saying “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes”. I just hope someday, that stupid will hurt again.