I don’t know why I do stupid things. No, wait, I do know. I’m an idiot.
I think we covered that already.
But, have you ever noticed when you do something stupid, it never seems stupid at the time? You never stand there and say to yourself, “Alright. Let’s do something stupid that will guarantee I get my leg torn right off.”
It’s only after the fact, looking back at the carnage of our decisions, do we see more clearly our ability to choose poorly. Only at that moment do we stop and say, “Ah yes. So this is what stupid looks like.”
One day I was getting my masters degree (only one day…?), and a buddy of mine said, “Hey, let’s go help this professor move all of his earthly possessions into a giant truck.”
I said, “No.”
He said, “It’s ten dollars an hour.”
I said, “Sounds like fun, when do we start?”
So off we went to do great and selfless things in the name of money. And do we did. There were boxes packed, giant clocks wrapped, and furniture moved. Fortunately, this man used only furniture made entirely of solid oak and other fantastically heavy materials.
…
It was a long day.
At one point, my friend and I were moving a particularly large, solid oak, dresser from the upstairs bedroom to the downstairs waiting truck.
I mentioned the stairs, right?
This dresser was heavy and the staircase was too narrow for more than two people to carry it. But being the manly youngish men we were, we looked at the dresser, the stairs, then each other… giving that “lets git er dun” look… grabbed hold, and off we went shedding pieces of our spine all the way.
All went well till we got to the stairs. Before we descended, my buddy needed to change his grip. This was horribly inconvenient because my grip was quite great. So we set it down, letting him alter his grip, all the while I was not releasing my grip at all.
This would have been fine, except that I still needed to pick it back up. You see, picking up awkward furniture usually requires at least two different grips. One that allows for easier lifting, and then one that allows for easier carrying. I had a great carrying grip, but not a great lifting grip.
But hey, I was young, and strong, and made of man parts. So I decided to do what everyone says you should do, which is lift with your legs.
This is great and all, except it doesn’t matter if you lift with your legs if your grip is bad creating terrible shoulder torque.
About six inches into that lift, my left shoulder went “pop.” Not in the good fun way that makes your mom squirm uncomfortably when you crack your neck or fingers. But in that expensive way that surgeons and physical therapists really enjoy.
What makes it bad is that I knew better. I actually stood there before we lifted and calculated the risk. I calculated the inconvenience of shifting grip and then re-shifting once lifted vs. lifting it awkwardly and punting my spine through my rib-cage. I knew that what I was about to do was a bad idea. But I chose it anyway.
I chose poorly.
Except, that wasn’t the really stupid part. The stupid part was how I didn’t stop working. I didn’t even set the thing down. I just went, “um, ouch… I think something bad just happened…” and continued carrying the thing down the stairs, as well as all the other stuff we needed to carry.
Except, that wasn’t the really stupid part, either.
The really stupid part was how I convinced myself it wasn’t anything major and that it would get better in a few days or weeks, and then proceeded to do nothing about it for 6 months.
Even though it wasn’t getting better.
Right.
After 6 months when I couldn’t tolerate my useless arm anymore, I saw a doctor, who had it scanned, or pictured, or drawn, or whatever it is doctors really do when they check you out, and declared that I’d torn my Labrum.
That’s the cartilage in your shoulder joint that your bicep muscle attaches to. Obviously, it wasn’t completely detached. I would have known that immediately as my bicep muscle snapped like a rubber band and coiled up into a ball by my elbow.
Instead, it was only a partial tear which just made it really really unstable.
And instead of going to a doctor right away, I just sort of pretended that it was going to be fine.
Shoulder surgery sucks. The recovery is unpleasant as well. You can’t move your arm for many many days. Which makes it hard to dress, undress, bath… my wife had to help me there. (I was actually pretty ok with that last one.)
Sleeping was next to impossible. Moving just right was very painful. And this doesn’t even get you to the rehab part.
Physical therapy was unpleasant. Important and good, but unpleasant.
It’s been almost 5 (8 now? I think?) years since then. My shoulder is weaker than it probably should be, and it doesn’t have 100% of the flexibility that it once had. I still work it, and it still slooooowly continues to get better. But I suspect it’s about as close as it’s going to get.
All because I was stupid.
I convinced myself that something was smart that actually wasn’t. I didn’t want to acknowledge that I could hurt myself. I didn’t want to consider the ramifications of my actions. I just wanted to be done.
I find that, often, the obvious is staring us in the face, but we refuse to acknowledge its presence. When what we want and what is true are side by side, we lie to ourselves and chose poorly. It’s like playing Russian Roulette and thinking those are good odds.
Have you ever notice how often we use the word “ignorant” incorrectly? It doesn’t mean someone is stupid. It just means someone doesn’t know something.
If I had been ignorant of the dangers, it wouldn’t make me stupid. It was in knowing the dangers and ignoring their reality that made me stupid.
There are so many things we come to believe as individuals. Some of which are true, some of which are not. Maybe what we believe that is incorrect is a product of legitimate ignorance. However, I’ve found that with most people, there are some things that they know to be one thing and they pretend that it isn’t so. It isn’t ignorance. It’s a desire to believe what they want regardless of reality.
I have a friend who likes to jokingly say, “don’t confuse me with the facts.”
Learning isn’t about ego. Change isn’t about ego. Growth isn’t about ego. Ego is an illusion, and yet often we make everything in life about our ego.
And that’s just stupid.
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