Take Me To Your Leader

Image courtesy of Travis S. via flickr

Image courtesy of Travis S. via flickr

I have never wanted to be a leader. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts to the contrary, I find myself in that position quite often. I distinctly recall the first time anyone ever accused me of actually holding sway over a group of people. I was very young at the time, probably around 12, and in they very stereotypical fashion of that particular age bracket my group of friends had decided that it was time to ostracize one of our own. I honestly could not tell you what it was that he did at the time. Frankly, I am not sure he actually did anything. I think it was just one of those situations where we were experimenting with social structure and power and he was the guinea pig of the moment.

At some point our friend must have told his parents about what was going on and how badly it was hurting him, because a few days into this whole experience I found myself sitting at my kitchen table with his Mother.

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The Road To Hell

Sometimes people need to fail.

I know that’s kind of a weird concept these days. We live in a world where everyone gets a trophy and products are marketed to us because we “deserve” them. We live in a world where we have to be sensitive about the feelings of everyone around us, and where we have to be careful about everything we say because our comments might be offensive. American culture is perfectly reflected in our medicine – we’re all loaded up on antibiotics and over-sanitized, and as a result we’re starting to develop some pretty horrible diseases because we aren’t letting our systems build up the proper immunities.

This really isn’t new.

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