October 11, 2018, Königsbach, Germany
Early morning and I bump into Christian, a wonderful man who works here at the hotel. Normally I see him in his hotel outfit, a very fine outfit, but today he is in a causal outfit. I thought he was taking a day off. In fact he has another, less visible, job: he also does a lot of gardening and maintaining the outside of the hotel.
He made an interesting comment, he said the gardening job is one that is rarely noticed but if he did not do it people would indeed notice. People do not notice when all is well and well maintained, they only notice when things are out of order.
This is a simple statement about gardening but a profound statement about life.
Yes indeed we are a lazy and mindless creature, and we only notice things when they are out of order, when our tranquility is disrupted and our peace of mind is disturbed.
And thus this simple answer is the answer to many of life's deepest questions; why do terrible things happen?
Terrible things do not happen overnight, they happen gradually, and the reason the can happen is because the evil people that mastermind them count on this human quality: We only notice things when they are out of order.
We only notice things when there are jarring issues, when something is very noticeable, very disturbing, until then we let it slide. That is how a fine house falls into disrepair, that is how a new car becomes a car with many problems needing expensive repairs, that is how a society falls apart. We only notice things when they become very much out or order.
It is the same with our own survival. It is the same with Krav Maga training. Violence is all around us. We see it on the news but ...that was someone else. We hear about it but...that was someplace else. We have Krav Maga classes near us, but...tonight I am tired, I will skip tonight's training.
And before we know it the violence is near us, and before we know it skipping one Krav Maga class has become a habit and we have only been in three lessons during the past six months. We do not notice the little changes.
Take lessons from a gardener. A gardener is a very wise man, he learns to notice little things, before they become big problems. A gardener must notice small changes in plants before they become major issues.
We do not see small problems and then when a tragedy takes place, a murder, a stabbing, a shooting, people being tied up and executed at their place of work leaving behind grieving spouses and little children who will grow up as orphans, then we take notice!
And then we shout for change. We demand change from the government, we demand major changes in policy, we demand things that actually cannot be accomplished, but the demand makes us feel good, it makes us feel as if we are doing something. In fact we are doing nothing but letting off steam.
But all we are doing is shifting responsibility from ourselves to some "outside body". We hate big government, we want our freedom and resent government intervention in our lives, until something bad happens and then we expect them to be our personal body guards.
Learn from a simple gardener, learn to notice things, do not wake up only when things are bad. Pay attention. Be prepared.
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