DECISION MAKERS: MEN WHO NEED SOMEONE TO BLAME

Decision makers are the last word, the final word. If you don’t believe it, just ask one.

There’s no lack of men ready to jump and claim the title of Top Dog.

“This is my final decision,” they say.

But it rarely is final.

Go to court and lose? File an appeal. Go to a doctor and get a bad diagnosis? Get a second opinion.

Asked a woman to marry them, and they said yes? Don’t blame the wife.

If it doesn’t work out happily ever after, the man blames the woman. Why wouldn’t he if blaming himself was the other choice?

What’s it take to make a good decision?

Think of all the big decisions that have affected your life so far.

Here’s a list of disease we can sort of ignore because of vaccines.

In labs across the planet scientists have worked to break the disease cycle, but keep their work in check until the final word comes down to release the vaccines to a needy world.

Can you name any top dog in the world who gives that sort of permission?

“We have high confidence that our vaccine will have the desired results.”

Is that was decision makers want to hear? Or is it more like: “Our testing shows this vaccine will attack and eradicate the targeted virus with no common side effects.”

What possible reason is there not to release a vaccine with this kind of scientific data?

It would take a special person to make up excuses and find someone to blame in case it didn’t pan out.

That would be the sort of person in a big job, a leadership job, who could stand before the world and say, “I take no responsibility.”

That’s Not What Real Decision Makers Do

A real leader doesn’t squirrel around looking for plausible deniability before making a decision.

At the same time, they also don’t say things like, “I put my reputation behind this,” or, “I’ll bet my career on this,” or, “If this fails I will resign.”

That covers the high end and the low end. One steps aside in the event of failure; the other makes room for more failing.

This fun quote was attributed to Churchill, but it’s never been found in his work:

Success has been defined as the ability to go from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.

Isn’t this how science works? Trial and error? Taking education and personal interests to create something useful?

From one experiment to the next, building on the gained information to find out what happens next, is the scientific method.

The seven steps of the scientific method

• Ask a question.
• Perform research.
• Establish your hypothesis.
• Test your hypothesis by conducting an experiment.
• Make an observation.
• Analyze the results and draw a conclusion.
• Present the findings.

When Decision Makers Go Wrong

A big problem today is getting over the corona virus, or moving beyond its reach.

So far vaccines and masks have shown promise, just not enough to convince people they work.

There’s anger at mask mandates and vaxx passports. Is it misplaced anger or justified anger.

Let’s consider the locations, or regions.

On a visit to Asheville, North Carolina I learned it had been the center of disease research and treatment.

The disease was tuberculosis.

Based on the “climatic theory” that Asheville had the altitude, atmosphere and climate to heal tuberculosis, the area became one of the nation’s best-known centers for the treatment of tuberculosis and an internationally recognized center of treatment and research for TB lasting more than 50 years.

I don’t have any respiratory problems but I had trouble believing the Asheville air was medicinal.

Go further south and take a breath of that air. Mask wearing has to be challenging in thick, humid, air. Add a pack Winstons and Salems from Tobacco Road and let the huffing begin.

Is it fair to say the southern states are more accustomed to shared suffering? I think of that with every story of SEC football. Those guys are going all-out in helmets and mouth-guards, let alone masks.

I understand the hard breathing part about wearing masks, but it’s the death and dying part that seems more pertinent without wearing masks and getting vaccinated.

Making The Right Decision On Covid

If you have confidence in your own decision making ability, have personal accountability, and empathy for others, this isn’t for you.

Why? Because you understand the severity of the virus and the obstacles we all face in taking it down. You are vaccinated, wear a mask, and acknowledge the good it does.

On the other hand, if you are guided by a poor excuse for a church leading minister, a defective message from a broken down political hack, or a lively Facebook group promoting anti-vax and anti-mask revolt?

This is for you:

Your supposed freedom is predicated on being alive to enjoy and protect them. Dead men have no freedom, no way to spread nonsense, and no way to join the chorus of vaccine doubters.

If you die of covid as an unvaxed, unmasked victim, are you really a victim? If so, a victim of what?

Can you blame the minister who insisted his flock was protected under the watchful eye of God? Blame God? Or blame your bad governor for refusing to face facts.

Here’s a fact: Texas requests refrigerated mortuary trucks for the anticipated backlog of dead bodies due to the sharp spike of covid.

If the people were okay with Grandma and Grandpa joining the covid dead, will they be as accepting when it’s little Jack and little Jill? Covid will break their crown as they tumble down and it will be tragic.

Pro tip: This writer was exposed to chemotherapy for neck cancer and I circled the drain during the ‘nadir’ of the entire experience. What’s the ‘nadir’? I felt like I was dying and it felt better than what I had going on.

But it wasn’t too late for me, not like the doctors are telling their patients who finally relent and ask for a vaccine in the ICU.

“I’m so sorry. It’s too late,” aren’t the words anyone wants to hear regarding their kids.

Be one of the family decision makers who don’t wait until then. Live your best life.