Institutions and Inefficiency

I just wrote a long, beautiful blog about complexity in choices, in how systems and families are the same in that problems may seem obvious but solutions are not always that simple. And then the website froze as I was doing my finishing touches and since I’m a dope that hadn’t backed it up, that was the end of that blog post.

Oh well. It was probably a bit salty anyway, and overlong, and all the things that happen when I get on my high horse. Suffice it to say, don’t be a butthead about people working long hours for nonprofits or schools. What they do is far more complex than anything I do on a normal day, and they take care of people that society could often care less about.

But you wouldn’t know that from anything you read or hear, would you?

I spend a lot of time online. It’s a bit of a failing, I have to admit, but my leisure time comes in random unplanned 10 minute chunks and there’s only so much Candy Crush I can play. The online world can be a dark place, full of judgment and criticism, and even though I spend a lot of time there, I find it disconcerting that the real world seems so much gentler.

Especially because it’s not as if the real world feels particularly gentle these days. Layoffs have come around again and while our family is ok, there’s a very palpable sense of foreboding. Every so often I see someone I haven’t seen in awhile and there’s an awkward, “You guys ok?” sort of conversation. So far, most people are. But we’re feeling the precariousness of our lives.

In the real world, we get both the good and the bad. And as much as I love adorable cat videos, there is nowhere as much good as bad on the internet. It’s even worse if you watch local news. I often walk on the treadmill at the Y while my eldest does swim team and, if I believed the TVs in the cardio room, I’d fear to walk out to my car afterwards. But without that, I’d never know about the terrible criminals that are apparently lurking outside my door.

Instead, my life feels a little more like Mr. Roger’s neighborhood. There are rough things, for sure – the aforementioned layoffs, and divorces, and bad diagnoses – but far more often, we see friendliness and fun, beautiful outdoor spaces and smiles even on the cloudiest of days.

In that world that is so easily judged, those inefficient institutions – schools, nonprofits, churches – are full of people who are mostly just trying their best to make the world just a smidgen better. And too often, all I hear is criticism, mostly from people who don’t really seem to do much to help.

I know that I’m not discovering something new – these concerns have been expressed before, in much more eloquent language than mine. But maybe it’s worth repeating. The world can be a hard, messy place and we don’t do enough to appreciate those people who do their best to meet us there and make it just a little bit easier. We don’t thank them nearly enough.