Outta the Box by Dr. Juan Harrison
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Ever noticed how it seems like one side or another keeps trying to push us into a box or jam us into a corner with a bunch of other folks. It’s almost like we don’t have an individual identity. You and I know that most people are not totally this or completely that. Most of us are like Donny and Marie’s theme song, “I’m a little bit country; I’m a little bit rock and roll.” In normal life most kids can look at their parents or grandparents and see physical, mental, emotional traits we’ve inherited from our family, yet, we’re not normally the “spittin image” of Grandpa or Mama Ree.
I know there are companies and people who make a living studying our spending habits, political leaning, and anything else that they can glean from our personal habits and social media activities. One decision to respond to some cause or organization can make you the recipient of a barrage of material almost on a daily basis. Open the door on your phone to something or someone and you’ll be getting swamped, especially politically related, sometimes almost hourly, especially during political season which almost seems to go on forever now.
Sometimes you almost get a spooky feeling that someone has put a tracer on your phone following your daily routine. With high grade microphones and high powered surveillance equipment you can almost hear Ray Stevens singing, “They’re everywhere, they’re everywhere.”
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You and I know that through whatever means possible, there’s a world out there that knows a lot about us. My problem is that I’m not a robot only capable of performing a certain way. We joke about a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. I reserve the right to do the same myself. Most of us operate by habits and tend to like the same restaurant or same grocery store. Still, most of us have found ourselves abandoning a restaurant that quit providing good food or good service.
Most of us get a little excited to try out a new eating place around here or even in a little town nearby. Word gets around. Soon the place is covered up or has closed its doors. We don’t usually give em but one or two tries before we’ve formed our opinion.
As I was driving back through the country the other day after a good meal in a Mexican restaurant in a nearby small town, I thought how blessed we are in America to still get to drive here or go there in search of the next great eating joint. No one made us do it; we chose where to go and how to spend our money. That’s what we love about Texas. If it’s good we can choose to drive half way across the state. We don’t have to stay in the box.
By Dr. Juan Harrison
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