Sometime last year, when I still allowed myself to mindlessly surf the web every now and then, I stumbled onto really weird photo. While it’s easier to find something like this than something worthwhile, this one was really odd. It showed, for lack of a better description, a bunch of obese people destroying bathroom scales with baseball bats.
Now, I know people want to feel good with themselves regardless of their actual health condition. It’s perfectly understandable. It’s not what I did when I had weight issues myself a few years back, but that was me. Not everyone needs or wants to wage this kind of war and that’s okay. People should not be disrespected because of their weight. On the other hand, the fashion industry is not giving up in pumping our brains with unreasonable and unhealthy image of extreme slimness.
The photo was not about need for respect, though.
You see, bathroom scale doesn’t make an opinion. It cannot disrespect you. It cannot laugh at you. The sole and only purpose and application it has, is to provide its user with scientific fact. Being called fat is an opinion. Weighing specific number of kilograms or pounds, not to mention having a specific fat ratio, is not.
What these people did then, was disagreeing with scientific facts. They declined the reality. They refused to accept things as they objectively are.
That’s terrifying.
I used to know people sinking in debts, who refuse to check the actual amount they’re due. Pretty much the same problem as above. They know they have huge problems, they have their lenders trying to contact them on a daily basis – yet they don’t want to know the actual number.
Because once you have the actual, reliable data on whatever your problem might be, there’s nothing stopping you from doing something about it.
Obese people know how to lose weight. There’s no magic in it.
Heavily indebted know how to recover. Again, there’s no magic in it.
But as long as they don’t know how far from expected state they are, they cannot determine how much of an effort is necessary to fix things.
Which makes perfect excuse for doing nothing.
Think about it next time your team has a feeling they do something wrong, but decide not to measure it.