Thanks for Responding
In the movie Thank You For Smoking, tobacco lobbyist Nick Naylor goes into his son's classroom to talk about what he does for a living. After talking a little bit about questioning authority, he concludes his speech with, "So perhaps instead of acting like sheep when it comes to cigarettes you should find out for yourself." At this point, the teacher politely interrupts him by starting to applaud and ushers him out of the classroom.
It didn't offend me, but it's very easy to see how a person watching this movie might get extremely angry at a tobacco lobbyist encouraging kids to try cigarettes. It's very easy to react. It's easy to get into a huff, stomp around your home or office, and tell the next 12 people you see about that "idiot tobacco lobbyist".
I suffered through all of Apocalypse Now, and the one thing from that film that stuck with me was Marlon Brando saying, "It's judgment that defeats us." That's a nice sentiment, but it's not judgment in and of itself that's the problem...it's how we choose to express that judgment. Reacting is ineffective because it's emotional.
It's much better to respond to things than to react to them. As Zig Ziglar was fond of saying, when the doctor gives us medicine, it's bad if our bodies react to the medicine. But if our bodies respond to the medicine, that's a positive thing.
Reality is medicine, and it's generally a bitter pill to swallow. Do you react or do you respond?
It would be easy to react to the scene in Thank You For Smoking, to get all riled up and emotionally involved. But a much more productive thing to do is to respond. Think things through. Give yourself time before you act.
And what conclusion might you reach? Perhaps that Big Tobacco didn't get big overnight. They became a billion dollar a year industry through accretion, the slow accumulation and growing of a segment of society that smoked cigarettes. And when you recognize this, you start to realize that the same for-profit motives that drive marketing for the tobacco companies could be used to influence people the other way. The same forces of persuasion that get people to start smoking could potentially be used to get them to stop, or better yet, never start in the first place.
I've met lots of people who have reacted angrily to the practices of Big Tobacco. But the people who conceived of and executed the Truth campaign took the time to respond. Which of these two groups, which do you think has made the biggest positive difference in the world?
It didn't offend me, but it's very easy to see how a person watching this movie might get extremely angry at a tobacco lobbyist encouraging kids to try cigarettes. It's very easy to react. It's easy to get into a huff, stomp around your home or office, and tell the next 12 people you see about that "idiot tobacco lobbyist".
I suffered through all of Apocalypse Now, and the one thing from that film that stuck with me was Marlon Brando saying, "It's judgment that defeats us." That's a nice sentiment, but it's not judgment in and of itself that's the problem...it's how we choose to express that judgment. Reacting is ineffective because it's emotional.
It's much better to respond to things than to react to them. As Zig Ziglar was fond of saying, when the doctor gives us medicine, it's bad if our bodies react to the medicine. But if our bodies respond to the medicine, that's a positive thing.
Reality is medicine, and it's generally a bitter pill to swallow. Do you react or do you respond?
It would be easy to react to the scene in Thank You For Smoking, to get all riled up and emotionally involved. But a much more productive thing to do is to respond. Think things through. Give yourself time before you act.
And what conclusion might you reach? Perhaps that Big Tobacco didn't get big overnight. They became a billion dollar a year industry through accretion, the slow accumulation and growing of a segment of society that smoked cigarettes. And when you recognize this, you start to realize that the same for-profit motives that drive marketing for the tobacco companies could be used to influence people the other way. The same forces of persuasion that get people to start smoking could potentially be used to get them to stop, or better yet, never start in the first place.
I've met lots of people who have reacted angrily to the practices of Big Tobacco. But the people who conceived of and executed the Truth campaign took the time to respond. Which of these two groups, which do you think has made the biggest positive difference in the world?