Do You Know How You Feel?

There is a famous quote that merits a challenge. Mind you, these are my own observations and from my own perspective but something for you to think about.

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

First, I have a very long memory, that is for things that are important to me. So although I often forget what was said when I don't think it's very important, like what my mum told me was going to be for dinner when I go to visit her. I never forget a lie. Just me ... I notice them, and I notice how many times I notice them. I've noticed when others have done it, and I notice it when I've done it. Like a little mini-scorecard.

But most important is the last part of that quote. "...how you made them feel." Well, here's the challenge. I used to believe people (I'm sure we've all experienced this on occasion) when they'd recount a story about some other person, only to reflect upon it (sometimes years later!) and think to myself "That just doesn't fit my own experience of him/her"... I can't imagine him/her being that way." ...and here's a the quote, reconstructed for you to consider.

“I've learned that you can never make someone feel anything. Most people are unconscious, they react and they justify their feelings with "reasons". They get their "reasons" by forgetting what was actually said, forgetting what was actually done, and creating and living inside of their story about how you made them feel, when they really made themselves feel that way.”

Both arguments are all over the web. Which one contains all the melodrama? I don't know about you, but I think the first.

Those are Eating Words!

The 2010 statistics are out and Canadians are well on their way to being an obese people.

Not surprising - to me at least - is that as proud as we are when we claim to be "different" than the Americans, we are once again going down the exact same path as the USA. So much for our "differences".

Being a student of Canadian Economic History, we have often lagged the US in so many endeavours - usually by about 5 years. We look down there to businesses and start ours 5 years later when we judge it "safe", cultural trends take about the same amount of time to filter up here (look out mom's and dad's! - kids are doing some pretty funky things at school dances! ). And that's pretty well the way it's gone with our fast food consumption and weight gain this time as well.

Now Chef Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution is challenging a US town to revise their way of life. Really, Chef Jamie Oliver is the only one who could do it. He's young enough to still want to change the world; he's outspoken (for a Brit) and challenging (for a Brit) and still manages to keep within the limits of the "soft" touch (what the Brits have done and still do so well). For this problem, Americans need to halt what's happening fast.

Sadly, neither an American nor a Canadian would be able to pull it off. Why? Americans - and their freedom of speech is a good thing, don't get me wrong - would just get too stuck in opposing positions and slow changes to a crawl (look at what they are doing with their health care debate). Canadians, well Canadians are very nice, eh?, yet avoid controversy. Could that be a cover for a way of being defined by either resignation or, worse, indifference?

-That being said, it is said that Ontario Schools will be junk-food-free in 2011. It seems we have been watching for good ideas State-side as we always do. Will we be able to stem the tide up here in Canada-the-Good? I'll be convinced when someone in the Peel School System assures me that a French-fry is not considered a vegetable.