Category Archives: random musings

news-commentary, random musings

Voting with the house

Confession: I’m kind of addicted to the show Big Brother. Call it a summertime guilty pleasure.

Not enough to purchase the live feeds (though I do recall one year somehow having the live feeds, and that was bad news because my productivity died that summer) but I have a separate column in TweetDeck for it, and if you open my browser and type in the letter “H” it autofills in with “Hamsterwatch” these days. So. Suffice to say, I’m pretty hooked.

There’s a phenomenon in this show, though, that’s happened pretty much since day one: voting with the house.

When house guests vote to evict a player, that person GENERALLY already knows they’re going. Eviction days are only fun when there’s a big blindside, but those are pretty rare. But it drives me crazy how often people will want Person A out, but they vote out Person B just because “that’s what the house wants.”

Expect the unexpected… I think Big Brother should add the twist that house guests are not allowed to discuss who they are voting out. I suppose then they’d have nothing to talk about. But once, just once, I’d love to see an eviction day happen in which NO ONE knows what’s coming. They all vote based on their personal feelings and games.

I’ve been chewing on this a lot lately, especially given its an election year. How often do people “vote with the house” in the real world?

This election year, something I hear a LOT is, “Voting for the lesser of two evils.” I saw a great post that disagreed with this sentiment stating that voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil. That really set me back on my heels a bit. What a way to look at it!

A friend recently posted to Facebook that they were considering voting third party this year, and a few of the comments really got to me. People saying this person might as well not vote at all, “Because it won’t matter anyway.”

Hmmm… excuse me, but it does matter. It always matters.

I remember back in elementary school learning about the voting process and how voting is done privately. You vote knowing you will not be persecuted for that vote, and that’s the beauty of a democracy: having a voice.

But in recent years, I’ve not felt that way as much. I’ve felt the pressure to “vote with the house.” I saw a very insightful post regarding this year’s election, and the very first response was, “But you didn’t say who you were voting for…”  They don’t HAVE to tell anyone. If they choose to share that information, that’s their prerogative.

Otherwise, I feel we should all stand for what we believe individually. Vote what you feel in your heart, not what your neighbor bullies you to vote. Study the issues. Weigh them in your heart and against your life and needs. Vote smart, not scared.

general-post, random musings

Finding happy in a world full of upset

On Saturday, I did my third Color Run, the “Happiest 5K on the Planet.”

Now, lets be honest here. It was chilly. It was drizzly. It was early (for me). And I might have been a little bit grumpy for awhile because of all of that. But ultimately, the satisfaction of completing the 5K once again, along with seeing so many other people who were so legitimately HAPPY, it was hard to not find myself smiling from ear to ear.

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I found a piece of happy in this world full of upset.

I’ve been having a hard time finding inner peace and happy lately, and I lay a piece of the blame on the media. Everywhere I read these days — be in on Facebook, news sites, Twitter, etc. — all I hear about is how upset people are. The world of up-to-the-minute news and opinions has created a breeding ground for negative feelings to gain legs and run.

Drama sells. I get that. Drama is interesting.  But drama is also exhausting.

Last fall I read a great post by Molly Parker entitled 5 things the media does to manufacture outrage. It was an interesting piece that really opened my eyes to how media is constantly subconsciously telling us we should be upset about something.

Should we be upset? Yes. Yes we should. There are countless things we should be upset about. Big things. Big issues. But there are also a lot of things we could handle with compassion instead of with outrage. We could seek to work together and find a middle ground instead of immediately finding anger.

I like to be happy. I want to be happy. I AM HAPPY.  But, also, I am over it. I am over outrage that just doesn’t make a whole lot of logical sense to me. I care. I care a lot about so many issues. But instead of getting upset, I seek to understand. As such, I want to focus on the positive things happening in life and learn from the negative. This is my goal, and its one I feel certain I can do.