Drive Thru Lines, The Container Store and No One Else Knows Any Better

There are many metrics you can use to explain the current health of our country.

You can look at the fact that according to the CDC 42% of adults are overweight or obese. You can look at the decreasing life expectancy, or the fact that children as young as 2 are not being diagnosed with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. But I think there’s simpler, but yes more subjective, measures than that.

The Container Store

For anyone that doesn’t know, there’s a store called the Container Store. Although I admit I’ve never stepped inside of one (and I never will), this is a store that is filled with plastic storage containers available for purchase mostly by people who have too much stuff (waste) and need a way to neatly put it out of sight. A big box, Walmart size store, filled with plastic. In an age where banning plastic straws is an act of “conservation” and makes headlines, we allow a company to sell plastic by the container load.

Drive Thru Lines

Chick-fil-a. Starbucks. The drive thru lines for fast-food is insane. Lines of cars wrap around the block, stuffed with people waiting to get their hands on sugary drinks and ultra-processed foods. Lines of cars emitting exhaust, while the occupants breath it in, because they don’t want to step our of their car. Most times the line in the store is now actually shorter than the drive thru. The drive thru used to be a quick convenience, but we’ve become so lazy that it’s now flipped. Being “comfortable” continues to proliferate throughout every aspect of our society.

Perhaps this isn’t a scientific way of taking the pulse of the nation (sweet pun), but I think it’s very telling. What we hear we want (less pollution, better health) stands in direct contrast with our actions.

These are just two anecdotal observations, but these are the types of things I see all over that give me little hope that any real change is on the horizon.

Change needs to happen from the top down. With limits on additives in food and regulations on things like plastics (real regulations, not plastic straw regulation). But they never will, because both of these fly in the face of what our politicians are really after. Money and power. And doing so would mean taking on the very same people (and corporations) that provide them with both. Money always has and always will control. It’s a sad reality. We’re a greedy species.

We Like To Think That They Know Better

I can’t take people deferring to supposed experts and someone more knowledgeable in a field. Of course there are times when this might be true, like when it comes to math, facts about science, or the truth about history. But when it comes to the present day, and what’s happening in real time, we need to be better at trusting our gut.

I was listening to a podcast today. The guest is a professional surfer. A very successful and well traveled man. He’s someone that has seen a lot and experienced a lot in his life. He began to opine about the U.S. foreign policy strategy but almost just as quickly started to back off, defaulting to “I’m sure it’s more complicated and they know better than I do.”

Specifically he was talking about being on the verge of WWIII and how we should be doing anything possible to avoid it. That doesn’t take an expert. There isn’t someone who knows better. But people always want to believe there is.

I remember when I was working our company was growing rapidly and our success attracted a buyer of our business. The company that was acquiring us was part of the largest health insurer in the U.S. Despite our success, the years of dramatic growth was causing cracks in our core business, and our executives were struggling to fix them while continuing on our growth trajectory. I was in my mid-20s at the time.

I specifically recall talking in the hallway one evening with my COO, CAO and VP of Operations. They were all discussing the relief of having this large company come in because it was assumed they had some knowledge that we didn’t that could help our business. I remember being so confused.

“What makes you think these people are any smarter than you?” I said. I knew that there wasn’t a team of healthcare geniuses that were going to fly in and solve our woes. But that didn’t matter, because they did, and that’s what they waited for.

Fast forward 10 years and the company I worked for (that was acquired) has experienced a drastic decline in performance by any measurable metric.

They didn’t know how to run our business, but they flew in thinking they did, and even worse they came in with an arrogant and pompous attitude that prevented them from listening to anyone else.

And that takes me back to the U.S. foreign policy and any policy. Politicians don’t know something we don’t. In fact, they are supposed to represent us, not tell us. But that’s what they do. They tell us they know better. They tell us they are trying to protect us. But they aren’t and they don’t.

We know the truth. We see it. We hear it. We all live it every single day. What you think is happening, actually is. Stop doubting it.