our opinions: CURMUDGEON MUSINGS
The Last
Word
BY MARK BROWN
Mind Your Own Business
“Great mischief comes from attempts to steady other people’s altars.”
— Mary Baker Eddy
I
t’s been my experience that watch-
ing other people make mistakes is
one of the most educational experi-
ences you can have. Of course, few
people have the self-control to shut
up long enough in order to glean
those valuable pearls of wisdom that
can come from observing the mistakes
of others.
I know a lady who noses into the
lives of people she hardly knows. Let
me correct myself — actually, she’s
not really a lady because a real lady
would never nose into the private
affairs of others, and would never
get involved verbally or otherwise in
other people’s business.
Prolific author Ethel Mumford
once said, “Busy people are never
busybodies.”
Gauging from that piece of
wisdom, this woman must actually
have no life whatsoever because it
seems her biggest pleasure in life
is messing with the lives of other
people.
What makes somebody do that?
Maybe some people get a big kick
out of analyzing the lives of others —
perhaps it’s like playing a computer
game or first person shooter (FPS)
games like Call of Duty. People like
getting a little of the excitement of
being a guerilla fighter without taking
the risk.
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I think busybodies like to live
vicariously through others. They like
to tell you how to live your life, that
you should file for divorce or quit
your job and find one where you’re
more appreciated. Is it possible
because they enjoy making your deci-
sions, without facing the consequenc-
es of those decisions? It’s got to be
more fun than making decisions and
living with the fallout, right?
Another theory I have is that the
recent explosion of social media in
our lives and domination of the air
waves by so many “experts” might
be a big part of the reasons so few
people don’t mind their business.
Facebook reminds me of the old
Hitchcock movie Rear Window. You
know, the one where the photogra-
pher has a broken leg and has little
to do all day and all night except
watch his neighbors through his
rear window and one night saw
something he shouldn’t have seen?
With Facebook, people watch their
“friends.” Many of them have nothing
better to do than to comment on the
lives of other people. It’s a very bad
habit to form.
So Jane Jones comments on
Facebook about her husband making
a negative remark about her weight.
She’ll get 15 “you look beautiful,”
and at least five, comments telling
her to leave the bum and 20 telling
her to buy a weight-loss “solution”
sold through a multi-level marketing
company.
The more time you spend watch-
ing “experts” pontificate on television,
the more likely you are to wake up
one day thinking you are an, “expert.”
No one feels free to simply live
their lives as they see fit, according to
noted author John Lachs.
Lachs, whose philosophical inter-
ests center on human nature, is the
author of Meddling: On the Virtue
of Leaving Others Alone (Indiana
University Press).
I truly understand and I’m sure
you do as well that we all have too
much to do and handle in our own
lives to meddle with other people’s
lives.
This woman I’m referring to is
destructive and selfish. She has hurt
others time and time again. So my
pet peeve here is don’t do that. Leave
other people alone. One good way
to stop people like this woman is call
them out. Vote them off the island!
Anytime you see people doing this,
stop them. Refuse to ever see them,
in fact instead of voting them off the
island let’s put them on an island with
all the other big mouth meddlers out
there and let them ruin each other’s
lives!