On the one hand, we all like to think of ourselves as special. We have unique talents to offer. We are all above average. Everyone wants to be treated better than …[MORE]]]> I’ve just return from a two-day conference where much of the discussion revolved around leadership. It got me thinking about a curious human characteristic that I’ll call the Leadership Paradox.

On the one hand, we all like to think of ourselves as special. We have unique talents to offer. We are all above average. Everyone wants to be treated better than the rest. There is just something in our nature that makes us rankle at being labeled “normal”.

On the other hand, watch how we behave when there is a call for leadership. That’s when we cringe, when we scrunch down in our chairs and attempt to hide behind the person in front of us. We want to blend in, to disappear in the crowd. As a species, we seem to be reluctant to put ourselves forward as leaders. In this situation, everyone wants to be just an Average Guy.

I’m certainly no different. I’ve often considered myself the best #2 in town. I don’t mind doing the work. I don’t mind passing on the orders. I don’t mind taking the back seat. Just don’t ask me to be #1.

What’s that about?

Leadership certainly has its drawbacks. There’s responsibility. There’s obligation. There’s prominence. There’s accountability. Perhaps scariest of all, there’s the chance that no one will follow. We’re not wrong when we view leadership with apprehension. But when we refuse to rise to the challenge of leadership and take refuge in our anonymity, the dangers are even greater.

When people of character refuse to undertake positions of leadership, they leave a power vacuum that the unscrupulous will rush to fill. Practically any leadership role offers opportunities for corruption, abuse and cronyism, and we are never at a loss for scoundrels seeking a chance to further their own agenda. If we want our leaders to be honest, responsive and productive, to have integrity and to lead us with purpose, then people who possess those qualities will have to step up. No one develops those traits on the job. You have to bring them with you when you apply.

There are many opportunities for leadership in life—in our churches, our schools, our government, our workplaces—and sooner or later most of us get the chance to lead. The choice is simple: you can step up, or you can step aside. But if you step aside, you have no room for complaint when the person who does step up uses the opportunity to increase their own personal wealth or power base. You had your chance and you blew it.

Are you going to settle for following a scoundrel, or will you rise to the challenge of leadership?

I was one of the last of my circle to get in the game. I pointedly resisted for a long time, but finally I caved. There was just too much going on there that I didn’t want to miss out on. Pictures were posted. Events were hyped. …[MORE]]]> After less than a year belonging to Facebook, I’m beginning to regret it.

I was one of the last of my circle to get in the game. I pointedly resisted for a long time, but finally I caved. There was just too much going on there that I didn’t want to miss out on. Pictures were posted. Events were hyped. Old high school chums were lurking. How could I hold out any longer?

Soon I became more attached than I ever imagined I could be. Mostly I just read the posts of others. I never posted a lot myself. I just didn’t see the point in broadcasting the meaningless details of my life. I’ll admit that sometimes I was amused by the meaningless details others would post, but mostly I skimmed right past them. Still, I couldn’t seem to go to bed at night without checking out the day’s musings.

Then the games began: farms, roller coasters, zoos, organized crime and vampires. Don’t these people have things to do? Or is this just the newest alternative to zonking out in front of the television?

But as annoying as the games, gifts, hearts and wishes can be, even worse is the advertising of the things I don’t want to know. If you join the Neo‑Nazis for the Torture of Kittens group, I will be forced to reconsider my opinion of you. I’m not opposed to your freedom to do so, but of you causing me to doubt my ability as a judge of character. There are some things I don’t want to know about my friends and acquaintances. There is much to be said for a modicum of personal reserve.

I try to remain circumspect when I post things myself, but I’m sure I sometimes fail. My circles and networks reach far and wide, containing people of all types, backgrounds and political persuasions. I’ve probably made a few of them shake their heads and wonder if they haven’t misjudged me completely. And I’m sorry about that. I prefer that people draw their own conclusions about me based on our real‑world interactions and not on the silly fact that I find a poodle wearing a tinfoil hat funny.

So the next time you think about becoming a fan of the Spanish Inquisition, think twice. Is that something you want everyone to know? Unless your name is Torquemada, perhaps you should keep that little gem to yourself.

Recently, I …[MORE]]]> Social Contract—an actual or hypothetical agreement among the members of an organized society that defines and limits the rights and duties of each

I thought I’d include this definition because it seems that the meaning is no longer being instilled by parents or schools. The concept of the social contract is dying a slow and painful death.

Recently, I drove downtown to attend a meeting in a high-rise office building. I had to park in a high-rise parking garage, one of those with a narrow inlet, a ticket dispenser, a manned booth and a gate across the lane. As I pulled up, I immediately noticed that there seemed to be a line and it didn’t seem to be moving. There were four or five cars between me and the vehicle at the gate. After a few moments, nothing happened. The car at the gate was not proceeding in an orderly manner. I continued waiting patiently.

After a few more minutes, my patience began to fade. The car still had not moved. More cars had lined up behind me. In fact, the line behind me had grown until it began to clog the intersection. Still I waited. The car still didn’t move. I couldn’t see the person in the car, couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, but I could see that the person in the booth was engaged in conversation with the driver. Still I waited.

At this point, my attitude began to tip toward impatience. The traffic blockage continued to expand. Cars wishing to enter the garage from the opposite side of the street via a left turn had also begun to accumulate. They were now interfering with traffic flow in the other direction and clogging another intersection. By now, the traffic snarl was actually preventing vehicles from exiting the garage.

And still we all waited.

It was a full eight minutes—a full eight minutes after I became irritated enough to start timing him or her—before the driver finally put their car in gear and passed through the gate, opening up the way for all the rest of us. By this time I was livid. I parked, entered the office building and immediately sought out a restroom. I needed to spend several more minutes counting to one thousand and ten before I could regain my composure. It was the only way to be sure that one inconsiderate fool didn’t spoil the presentation I was there to give.

That person should not be allowed to roam freely.

It is my general experience in such instances that the chances are good that the driver was blissfully unaware of the chaos caused by their thoughtlessness. That is usually the case. But more and more often these days, it seems that the obstructor is aware and just doesn’t care. The new theme seems to be that as long as my convenience is being served, it doesn’t matter how many others are inconvenienced. I once saw a driver bring three lanes of traffic to a complete halt because he was in the left lane and wanted to be in the right lane. Apparently, circling the block is a technique no longer taught in driver’s ed. Or, more likely, the driver just couldn’t be bothered, because it was easier to make everyone else stop and wait until he got what he wanted.

But back to the parking garage and the inconsiderate person there. No doubt their problem, whatever it was, was important to them. It may even have been a dire emergency. But was it so important that several downtown blocks needed to be brought to a halt until their need was met? Somehow I doubt it.

Back a thousand years ago when I was growing up, mothers generally taught their children that obstructing the progress of others was bad manners, like belching or passing gas—something to be avoided when possible and apologized for when not. This lesson seems to have been lost to the ages.

So I’ll just offer some general advice. If someone behind you in a line somewhere seems to be growing impatient or irritated, ask yourself: Am I in their way? Do I need to be? Might that person be armed? And if you’re in the same boat they are, try to catch their eye. Find some nonverbal way of sharing the frustration of your mutual plight. That might keep both of you from resorting to violence.

And to all those oblivious impediments out there, I’ll just say this. One day, one single red blood cell out of the trillions in your bloodstream will find some need to stop in the center of one of your capillaries and serve some selfish purpose of its own without regard to the entire circulatory system stacking up behind it. So when a massive stroke lays you to waste, just remember: Your convenience need not be considered.

A few months ago, I switched my service to digital. I wasn’t even planning to do that, but some sweet little pixie knocked on my door and outlined a …[MORE]]]> Are you considering a switch to digital television? Have you done so already? Are you as annoyed with the whole thing as some of the rest of us are?

A few months ago, I switched my service to digital. I wasn’t even planning to do that, but some sweet little pixie knocked on my door and outlined a deal I saw no reason to refuse. Better package, free installation, lower monthly fee—what the heck, sign me up.

The installation came off as promised; the monthly fee, too. And I’ll admit that the upgraded internet access is aces. But the digital television transmission takes some getting used to, and I can’t say that I’m happy with it.

To begin with, just getting used to a new remote is ghastly. Your fingers can never find the right buttons, and you’re constantly hitting something that causes programmus interruptus and you can’t figure out what to do. The new remote has a feature I find particularly annoying: the “jump” forward skips 30 seconds of programming, while the “jump” backward only reverses seven seconds. That means for every excessive skip forward, you have to punch the backward skip four times or more. Very aggravating.

The remote control design also completely omits one very important feature, especially given today’s movie and television production. There is no slow‑motion forward, no frame advance, nothing in the way of controlling the visual except a complete freeze. This means that if you miss some clever little background joke, some handwritten clue flashes past, or you can’t live without reading every single word of a Chuck Lorre vanity card, you must get very adept at freezing the picture at just the right second. One second too late at the pause button, and you have to back up seven seconds, listen to the same snippet of dialogue again, and once more try your hand at getting the freeze just right. If you miss again, repeat the last sentence ad infinitum.

There are other problems with the service, too. Sometime recordings won’t replay. Sometime the on/off button indulges in a playful bit of teasing, where it powers off the box but not the television, or vice versa. While the system allows you to customize a “favorites” program guide, it is not easily accessed, but requires you to navigate two menus down each and every time you want to use it. In addition to many useless (to me) interactive services, they offer a “Weather on Demand” service. Sounds good, right? Except to get the weather “on demand” requires a sequence of exactly seventeen remote control commands. The space shuttle launches with less hoopla than that.

Here’s the biggest aggravation, though. From time to time, the information packets in the digital transmission get scrambled or otherwise rerouted. The picture pixilates, breaks up and freezes, and the audio goes silent. This can last for one or several seconds. It affects both live viewing and recording. It can also occur in the playback of recordings, though in that case you can skip back and the replay will be intact. But when it occurs in real time or is captured at the recording stage, there is no recovery of the missed seconds. Now usually that’s just annoying. Recently, however, I recorded the two‑hour finale of the last season of the saga of a certain time lord who was running out of time. High drama…multiple storylines converged…final scene…then in the last five seconds: freeze/silence. By the time the transmission was restored, the credits were rolling. I missed the end of time itself, all because of that freakin’ digital scramble! My shouts of frustration bounced off the walls of my living room, but to no avail. I had to tape the program on a repeat airing, then fast‑forward through the entire thing again to find out how the universe ended.

At least it wasn’t pay‑per‑view.

I’m not usually an early adapter, and these sorts of problems are one of the reasons I don’t rush toward new technology. It always takes a while to work the bugs out, and during that time the price usually drops, too.

I’m not (quite) saying you shouldn’t get digital television. I just want you to know that the future isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, at least not yet. Maybe you’re better off waiting for digital 2.0.