I make it a policy to always stay as far behind current as possible with everything. I have a hundred year-old lawnmower. I use a ten year old version of Adobe Acrobat^®. I used a 1992 version of MS Word until I could no longer find a machine it ran on, then did not purchase the snazzy unusable more modern version. Looking at the more modern Word was enough for me to decide to be forever MicroSoft-free.

I am no curmudgeon. (I know all curmudgeons say that.) I think of myself as the very soul of practicality. Learning any software tends toward the excruciating for me. Unlearning software, even more difficult. I believe that not even lightly broken necessitates a fix, and mere embellishment, almost always a mistake. I let sleeping dogs lie and I give attentive ones an even wider berth.

Nobody should be surprised that at least half of the population seems angry when their health care system gets an upgrade. To most, it doesn’t feel like an upgrade at all because it’s smashing their familiar status quo. It does not matter that someone might be personally better off after, they do not want to have to abandon what they know. Do-gooders beware, few will appreciate what you try to do ‘for’ anyone. Doing for ferments into done for.

The innocence I displayed when downgrading my iOS with the most recent upgrade might prove to be the very best way to introduce change, with the little-appreciate false pretense. No software supplier in the history of the biz has ever once told the truth about the disruption downloading their latest and undoubtedly greatest upgrade would initiate. They provide false pretenses instead. Don’t frown in disapproval. We buy our groceries under this same regime.

Go ahead, tell me how much better my life will be. Promise me the moon. I probably need the hopefulness—certain to shortly be dashed—your pretense brings me. I cannot handle the truth and I do not need it. Most of my most ExtraordinaryTimes started just after I discovered my dissolving innocence. That pretentious boost amplified my fall which enhanced my experience. My experience has mostly been of the recovering kind, the chaotic search for a workable replacement status quo. Setting me up has always better served to shove me ahead.

Go ahead and set me up, even go so far as to knock me down. I’m quite skilled at getting up again, thanks to my now vast experience with upgrades that turned into downgrades. Getting back up’s the very soul of this game.

©2013 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: Working, Writing, Living, Manifesting