It is always strange where lessons pop into my life. The other day I went to walk my dog, I grabbed the leash, my dog got over excited, I clicked it into her harness and off we went. Belle is getting a little older, so we do many short walks, and occasionally I take her on long hikes. This walk was around the block to get her outside and get me outside for a few minutes.  

A few minutes into the walk Belle had to go poop. I went to get a bag to pick it up, and there was none left. This is another first world problem, those of you who know me know I use this expression often. But my first reaction was anger, who used the last bag? Which one of my kids did not refill? Why didn’t I look to see if there were no empty bags before I left on the walk? Redirecting the anger from others to myself, also not a good thing. 

While walking back to the house I started thinking a bit more rationally. There is a classic saying that two wrongs do not make a right. This situation had a new definition of two wrongs. In this case, yes whoever used the last bag should have reloaded the leash. I also should have looked at it. I started thinking about other situations where there is a chain of failures, and we often look for a sole source of blame.  

Why do we want a sole source of blame? And why do we not want the sole source of blame not to be us? Our brains are as complex as they are like simple, they like shortcuts. When there is noise or unnecessary information our brains do their best to ignore it. If there is missing information in our brains, try to fill it in to make sense of what we are seeing and hearing. The classic story of why Lucille Ball could get Russian signals in her teeth, as the story goes was to dispel the myth of how powerful they could be. Having a single spot to blame is used by marketers to sell you things, as well as politicians to sell you on voting for them. Just as I wanted to blame one of my daughters than thinking there were two reasons for the failure, hearing someone I already dislike is the cause of my problems.  

I challenge myself to get past my first reaction and dig deeper. Solving problems is where I want my brain to be spending its energy. In the case of the situation, I thought of a few things: 

  • Putting a second bag holder, yes, I could run into the same situation with two 
  • Wrapping a bag around the handle, as a reminder if you use one on the handle to replace the bag, or if you pick it up without one on the handle you need to replace the bags. 
  • I could put a note on the door, do not forget bags 
  • Etc. 

In any situation understanding anger that comes from problems is a chance to redirect that anger to problem solving. I need to remind myself of that lesson and think about my dog. 

This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers have nothing to do with it. I do not write for any financial gain; I do not take advertising and any product company listed was not done for payment. But if you do like what I write you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. The fundraising site had to be restarted and NYP Hospital made changes to their donation sites. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket, my intention is to keep it free.  You are welcome to comment, but note it is moderated and all spam will be removed.

This Blog is a labor of love and was originally going to be a book. With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web I chose this path. I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content. I apologize in advance for my ADD as often topics may flip. I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog.  AI is not used in this writing other than using the web to find information. Images without notes are created using an AI tool that allows me to reuse them.