It’s easy to point out what’s wrong. Anyone can do that. Push beyond…
Be solution oriented. Figure out how to fix what’s wrong, or if it can’t be fixed how to live with it.
This will put you in the top 20%. And help you fix or accept things. And help others fix or accept things.
Be the solution, not part of (pointing out or part of) the problem.
80% of people can point out (or are part of) the problems already and while they may (or may not) mean well, it’s not solving anything.
Solve it or accept it is what it is. Pointing it out without any solution just frustrates everyone.
What do you think? Please share in the comments!
Notes From a Red Pill Girl 
Yeah … that’s gonna depend on who your boss is (assuming a workplace environment here).
Let’s tell women that they cannot discuss with us guys any problem at all unless they also have figured out the solution. (Be a male boss with a mixture of men and women subordinates and see who that goes over really well with.)
‘Pointing it out without any solution just frustrates everyone.’
Sure…but it’s just as frustrating to them when you point out the solution because it requires some effort and sacrifice from them to solve their problem.
This is a results versus wishes paradigm.
Some people just love pointing to the problem without having any solutions.
The more liberal, aka “progressive” the population, the more of a “thing” this is.
People make entire careers based on pointing out problems. There are actually people who take pride in pointing out the obvious with no solution.
When humanity was on the pointy edge of survival as a lifestyle, this wasn’t a thing.
AOC’s equivalent doesn’t exist in that world. They either don’t survive, or they are forced to grow up.
“OMG! Kids in cages!”
What is your better alternative?
“OMG! Kids in cages!”
(add infinity of up votes)
The wishes over results based orientation is a habit. I’m convinced it’s a modern day psychosis of sorts.
Just thinking further, I guess it isn’t too modern since the Soviets are the quintessential example. In their case, they had an entire procedure-based economy that enforced the wishes over results paradigm.
“Dear Leader…it pains me to tell you that we have failed. Ten percent of the population has died of starvation”
“Do you have a procedure?”
“Yes, comrade, we have a procedure, and we kept to the procedure”
“Fine. Keep up the good work, comrade!
At Mike’s last assignment, he took on a hard job. The maintenance record for that base and airframe was the worst in the entire USAF. The worst in the history of that airframe, in fact. And it had been notoriously terrible for years. And he was an outsider.
Immediately upon taking over and trying to find out what was wrong, they brought him a list of problems without solutions. The planes were old, yada yada….
He said he’d give them a certain amount of time to bring him solutions rather than just pointing out problems. This was no easy task, and cutting to the end makes it sound easy, but to save time….within about six months that base went from worst to first, and stayed there. They became the gold standard and the maintenance people went to other bases to try and fix their problems too. This when no one had thought change was possible, and the planes were not getting any younger.
The big problem with solutions is….if you suggest a solution and follow up on it, there is risk. Far easier to point to problems and hope others take on the risk of coming up with an innovative solution.
Sorry for the quadruple post, I’m feeling chatty. Last one I promise…
Since people are social animals, they kind of “catch” behaviors. So if you are surrounded by solution oriented people you will be more likely to be solution oriented. Same for all sorts of human behaviors…both good and bad. If you’re around people who volunteer all the time to help others, you’ll be more inclined to be helpful. Hard to be that lonely asshole. And so forth….so in a nutshell the clucking hen herd is also a learned, “caught” behavior. I’ll give an example:
Back when i lived overseas and the sons were wee, I had a few mentors of sorts. It wasn’t easy being alone in a foreign country with wee ones, and the spouses were deployed a lot over there. Whenever I would feel sorry for myself, I’d look to others who were doing it well, and without complaint. There were more than you would think. The civilian world doesn’t have as many, in my experience.
I had a friend who traversed the globe with five kids. Her husband had to go to Afghanistan and work with the Marines right after the Aviano assignment, so he couldn’t be there to take them home or find a home once they arrived.
She had been a school teacher and came up with all sorts of innovative and inexpensive solutions for traveling with small children. She brought tape (so they couldn’t push the buttons constantly on the plane, which would annoy the flight attendants, ect.
When she had to find a home on her own with kids in tow, she gave them each a stack of quarters. Deal was, if they started annoying each other or touch things they weren’t supposed to, she would take a quarter away. It didn’t matter who started it, she would take them away from all culprits. They’d tour the homes with their hands crossed in front of them the whole time. By the end of the week, they all had all their quarters.
Anyway….knowing someone like that, when I had to go home by myself and do the same thing a few months later (Mike had to go to the desert for an undisclosed amount of time), I couldn’t complain. I was grateful and I used her techniques…they were very effective.
My hooker reports that she is doing phone sex calls with guys from the East Coast. What is the significance of this? The dating scene is to toxic and women are so undateable that guys are searching the country for an alternative. She said that one guy says all of the same things about women that I say. There’s a solution for you, Bloom. My hooker is going nationwide.
My wife’s father passed away last week. Visitation was tonight. Funeral is in the morning.
I probably should say that its been tough dealing with it all. But its really not been that way. Not for us. My wife’s brother is a mental case and about to lose it, but us ? Me and her ? We’re fine. I got her back and she knows it. She’s been awesome, executor of the estate … which isn’t much. We’re a team. Teams are always better than a single on their own, its why people have traditionally gotten married. Does having 2 parents in the home work better than just one ? Yep, it sure does. Mostly we just talk about the shit going on … with complete honesty and we just trust each other. Beginning to think that’s the secret to marriage.
Her dad was a good dude. BV gushed about his ex-father-in-law on Spawny’s site recently and no doubt he’d appreciate her dad. I could provide a bio if anyone cares, but trust me … he was a good dude.
Was pretty interesting tonight at the visitation. All the people; mostly relatives, who showed up to show their respects. None of which I’d ever met, except for one. All showed respect for me. They said that word had gotten around that I was a good guy. Which surprised me because we’ve been married less than a year and she was married 27 years to her ex. And not a word about the ex. Not a fucking word … from anyone. Like wow. It was like he didn’t and has never existed. I even asked one of her boys … “do you think your dad or his mother are going to show up ?” and he just plain said … nope, I wouldn’t count on it. And the ex has known her dad since he was 8 years old. Wow.
The other weird thing was my wife’s older 1/2 brother. Total asshole, from what I’ve been told. Rollo or Vox Day would probably call him an “Alpha” … tall, good looking, bad-boy, fucked up in the head psychopath, liar who is good with women. Anyway, he’d been dis-owned by the family because of his character … his own son showed up at the visitation with his wife … both were nice and welcomed … the kid didn’t even invite his own father to his own wedding. Yeah … you’ve been disowned when your son gets married and doesn’t even invite you to the wedding. Yikes. The family was actually dreading the prospect that the ex-communicated asshole would hear about his step father passed away and would show up and make a scene. But he didn’t. Thank god.
The weird thing is that several of the “Alpha’s” high school classmates showed up asking where “Mick” was. They didn’t show up to show respects to the outstanding father who had to deal with a lying asshole of a stepson. Nope … where is the lying asshole … is what these dudes wanted to know ??? Jesus …
Pretty telling stuff right there.
Anyway, lots to learn from tonight … still digesting it. Kinda weird to have relatives you’ve never heard of … drive 6 hours on short notice … and welcome you like family … because they heard you are a great guy thru the family grapevine and the dude who had been their for 27 years ……. nobody fucking cares about … because he was a dick. Seriously … thought I’d be hearing … “where’s Dave ?”, “where’s Dave ?” … all night … but nobody gave a shit. Yikes, 27 years … and nobody gives a shit, ouch !!!
Sorry if this is a thread-jack. Just spilling my guts and hopefully exposing some truths.
Absolutely. Pointing out a problem without offering a solution is called complaining.
Actions.
Hitler was solution oriented too, just sayin. 🙂
Oh look, I just found the soundtrack to this post:
😛
Hitler was solution oriented too, just sayin.
Think he also liked chocolate.
Funeral was today. Went well. Wife was a rock. Waiting for the tears, and they will come in time. She did admit she cried on the way home … I had to get back to work so left as things were winding up … and so she spent some time with her kids. Her ex showed up after everything was done, to see his kids, so he said. Actually decent of him to not make a scene. But afterwards, on her way home … she cried. As it should be.
For Ton and BV, he got the 12 gun salute and my wife’s fucked up brother got to take home the very carefully folded Flag. One thing about Vets … they try to take care of their own … its not always successful … but you got to give them credit. Dude served in the Korean War and they are still there for him after all this time. Kudos.
Anyway, weird day. Nothing like a funeral to remind you of what life is all about.
Thanks for listening.
Peace
Mega – my wife’s father served in Korea during the Korean war. Your posts in this thread strike a chord.
My Dad’s ashes were laid to rest (a while back) at a VA cemetery.
I agree they do a very good memorial service. It meant a lot.
His flag is on display in our office.
Hmmm, maybe begin by training youth to understand reality. The Sweetie says we must make strawberry jam for maybe three weeks because her sleepovers have discovered real jam and have been complete locusts at breakfast ;-D
Well, I know that we made seven, maybe eight pints, of that jam maybe three years ago, that is a lot of jam. So several teenagers are now about to learn how to make strawberry jam. My wife did this many years ago when she told the Sweetie that one cannot buy that, you have to make it. Hopefully, they will come to understand the truth because it is all about the number and quality of the berries.
Hi RPG!
Nice that you are still around. I just sent you an email. Hopefully it came through this time. I have had trouble sending emails for some reason.
There is a new post at Spawny’s
https://spawnyspace.wordpress.com/2019/06/08/something-you-wont-see-today/
LOL, we had a successful jam production on Sunday. The Sweetie and two of her sleepover buds helped, they had cheesy omelets and hash spuds with onions first. Then went to work and made six and a half pints of excellent strawberry jam. They all went home with a couple of pints each, and they will remember this every time they enjoy it on their family’s toast…they might even develop bragging rights ;-D
Had a weird experience at work this week. Maybe a topic for another post. A co-worker that I barely know. Female. Mid 30s; so much younger than me. Divorced. About 5-4 and 400 lbs. Not kidding, at least 400 lbs. And effed up in the head. As in seriously mentally ill and brings it to work. Mostly bs about her kids. Who are even more effed up than she is. I make a conscious decision to stay FAR, FAR away from her …
So an email goes out this week, and ps keep it quiet ! And then a folder with a card and taking donations goes around to everyone in the dept. SHE IS GETTING MARRIED ON SATURDAY.
Un-fucking believable. I really can’t imagine what kind of man would sign up for something like that. Beyond words …
I tried think what kind of man would sign up for that and got as far as … if she weighs 400 lbs … he probably weighs 600 and can’t get it up anyway so sex is off the table. But then the kids and mental illness and everything else set in … and no way, no how. Just can’t understand it. Who could possibly be so stupid …
Who could possibly be so stupid …
He might be a con artist. Maybe she has family money or something.
If it was the 80s I’d guess he was a USSR mole.
Well, more jam production. This time the girls wanted fried rice for brunch, the Sweetie used my recipe which includes bacon bits…stolen from the father of a girl I dated. Her mother called me “white rice.” So the romance didn’t go far ;-D
This time they got 8 pints plus a half for me. They were quite proud of themselves, becoming traditionalists one girl at a time, because they will remember every time they eat the jam and that fried rice. You cannot buy it, you have to make it.
There is a new post at Spawny’s
https://spawnyspace.wordpress.com/2019/06/16/on-the-cusp/
Happy Fathers Day … all … fathers. Had kinda of a cool thing happen tonight. The new wife said one of her kids texted her tonight and asked her to wish me a Happy Father’s Day. Don’t know him all that well, but the other brother … getting to know him pretty well. Spent part of the day today, there, with him. So word must have spread. Kinda cool that they’d wish their “step dad” a happy fathers dad … since they are both already adults. Wonder if they said that to their real father. Somehow, I doubt it.
Anyway, was a nice pat on the back. Must be doing something right.
Peace
“So this is your first day at AdviceCorp …”
“Yes, it is … wait, was that a question?”
“No, it’s clear you haven’t been through training yet.”
“Training in what?”
“The Standard Model of Advice Acceptance.”
“Which is?”
“You’ll get it in your training programme.”
“But what if I want it now?”
“You don’t really want it now.”
“You don’t know anything about me!”
“Yes, but I’m 100% certain that you don’t really want to know this now, and that you’ll be better off if you wait until the training programme.”
“Let’s say I’m one of the exceptions then …”
“Fine. The real reason why you want to know this now is that you don’t really want to know the answers about why certain types of advice never really work, but you think that this is going to help you score points with people here because it shows you’re A Real Go-Getter, A Forward Thinking Person, and so on, and that anyone who disagrees with you should be punished in order for you to gain Special Brownie Points.”
“You’re saying that I’m an aspirational hustler?”
“Well … yes.”
“I should complain to my manager about you!”
“See, that’s why we wait until the start of the training programme. Is this you being A Real Go-Getter or A Forward Thinking Person?”
“I … er … what does this have to do with me?”
“If you’re going to give advice that’s going to be accepted, then you have to present your advice within a mental framework that the advice receiver is going to accept.”
“Yes …”
“But this doesn’t take into account that the advice receiver may want to play an Advice Receiving Game in which they sucker you into offering advice that has nearly no chance of ever being followed.”
“That’s true, but …”
“Oh, no but, actually — these games involve getting you to offer your Best Game Ever in the hopes that it actually helps someone, but these people actually enjoy crapping all over reasonable advice so they can further manipulate you.”
“But that’s perverse!”
“More than that, they play this game so they can externalise all of the bad choices they’ve made by claiming that all they’ve ever received from other people is bad advice for their situations, and so you appear to be One Of Several Guilty Parties.”
“This is absolutely awful advice!”
“Then I should point out that your training programme actually began when you sat down in this office.”
“WHAT?”
“Admit it, you crap all over reasonably decent advice about The Standard Model of Advice Acceptance not because it’s wrong, but because it describes your behaviour.”
“Wait, I’m the problem?”
“Yes, You Are The Problem, and that’s the first rule in our training programme. You Are The Problem if you help an advice addict get his or her fix of Advice.”
“You’re just making excuses for not helping people!”
“Not at all. I’m already making headway here by showing you that your resistance to the idea that Advice is something that can be studied and modelled makes you the problem and not the solution, not for yourself or for anyone else. Once you accept that your mere presence in an Advice Situation may complicate the acceptance of advice, then you can also accept that there are proven ways to do it, hence the Standard Model of Advice Acceptance.”
“So in order to help others I must first fix myself?”
*pulls out a notebook and a stopwatch, then ticks off box number 1*
“I should point out that your performance so far in this training programme is actually below average, just in case you were hoping for A Real Go-Getter credits or Special Brownie Points.”
“REALLY?”
“Yes, I’ll make a further note here that you actually deserve demerits for being so obvious. Now try to focus on how you can become useful in Advice Situations, and do pay attention from now on!”
🙂
I think Post Alley Crackpot is Jason.
And the Trainer is Oscar lol! 🙂
There is a new post at Spawny’s
https://spawnyspace.wordpress.com/2019/06/22/the-young-new-mums-who-are-good-old-mums/
Had a good Sunday, both the gobblers showed up to make jam, eight more pints…but made fried rice for brunch first. Some lucky young pup is going to get some lucky with the Sweetie, she knows most of the recipes and knows where the rest are :-D.
Our problem: not enough postings.
My solution: MOAR POSTINGS.
It’s been a whole month, yo. 🙂
…
“So what you’re saying is that I should pay more attention and follow my own advice more often?”
“Not at all, because you suffer from Perspective Bias and think your advice is all golden or all crap, but nothing in-between.”
“But this implies that I can’t recognise how my own advice is rubbish and so I also can’t recognise how the advice I’m giving others is also rubbish.”
“Also not so.”
“It would appear to follow …”
“And yet it doesn’t, because your Perspective Bias keeps you from seeing that you may see other people’s problems more clearly precisely because they are not your own.”
“So I should focus on giving other people advice …”
“And you could also become a bartender and not a professional Advice Advocate providing quality Advice that people are willing to pay for. I hear some people go on to become politicians after doing that, it could be the right vocation for you …”
“This is just you giving me crap advice so I can hear what crap advice sounds like.”
*pulls out the stopwatch, scribbles in the notebook, and ticks box number 3*
“I SAW THAT … why Box 3?”
“Because you are not ready to deal with what’s in Box 2.”
“Really? What’s in Box 2?”
“Remember that scene in one of those Star Wars movies where Luke goes into the cave and meets Darth Vader, killing him and discovering his own head in the helmet?”
“Yes …”
“It’s nothing like that at all.”
“Box 2 has something to do with my insecurities, doesn’t it?”
“Could be … yes, actually.”
“FINE, I concede that Box 2 is probably your problem entirely and it involves getting me to understand that not everything is really about me so I can get on with helping dispense reasonable Advice.”
“Clever … but no. What would you do about this anyway?”
“I might find out more about the problem … oh, right. Perspective Bias. I’d need to look at the problem completely from the outside.”
“What if you can’t?”
“What do you mean I can’t?”
“What if I told you that Box 2 was a prompt to ask you at a later time whether you left the light on in your refrigerator?”
“It shuts off automatically.”
“How do you know that? Are you a mechanical or electrical engineer? Can you really look at this problem from the inside?”
“No … but I could accept that someone else who is one has looked into it and has told me there’s a little switch that gets depressed when the door closes, and that switches off the light.”
*pulls out the stopwatch again and puts it away, then ticks box number 2 without scribbling anything in the notepad*
“WHAT ABOUT THE STOPWATCH?”
“Oh, I’m just messing with you, this isn’t really a timed training course.”
“WHAT?”
“We test our new hires to see if they have a sense of humour.”
“WHAT.”
“Also, a sense of ego.”
“W.H.A.T.”
“You passed!”
“Really?”
“No, this is all just a game to show you how your Perspective Bias really works. You still think this training is all about you. Let’s break for lunch and then we can come back here and you can get straight to work on some colouring books!”
“THAT WOULD BE A WASTE OF TIME … oh, right, very funny.”
*erases the mark made in box number 2*
“Haha, cute, even funnier.”
*erases the marks made in box numbers 1 and 3*
“YAY, GO ON, DO IT!”
*rips out the entire page from the notebook, balls it up, and throws it into the corner rubbish receptacle*
“I KNEW IT.”
“No, you didn’t, because you’re still rubbish at understanding your perspective is, to put it mildly, somewhat fucked …”
“Somewhat …”
“Fucked. Yes. You thought this was like a school exercise where you sit at a table and learn things like you’re a Really Good Student and that there’d be demerits and all of that bollocks. But there are bigger stakes involved than that.”
“Such as?”
“People hate you for all the right reasons instead of merely made up ones.”
“I could live with that …”
“So after lunch, you’ll come back here and work on your colouring books while ten angry people you’re supposed to give Advice to tell you how much you suck at it.”
“THAT’S HORRIBLE!”
“That’s my morning every day, get used to working here …”
“Really?”
“No, you don’t think we were going to actually give you colouring books to work on while taking all of that abuse, did you?
🙂
“No, you didn’t, because you’re still rubbish at understanding your perspective is, to put it mildly, somewhat …”
“Somewhat …”
“Yes, somewhat. You thought this was like a school exercise where you sit at a table and learn things like you’re a Really Good Student and that there’d be demerits and all of that bollocks. But there are bigger stakes involved than that.”
“Such as?”
“People hate you for all of the right reasons instead of merely made up ones.”
“I could live with that …”
“So after lunch, you’ll come back here and work on your colouring books while ten angry people you’re supposed to give Advice to tell you how much you suck at it.”
“THAT’S HORRIBLE!”
“That’s my morning every day, get used to working here …”
“Really?”
“No, you didn’t think we were actually going to give you colouring books to work on while taking all of that abuse, did you?”
🙂
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