A great rule of conduct is this: Would your mother approve?
Nobody’s watching and it’s there for the taking. Would your mother approve?
You could choose the easy way out. Would your mother approve?
You can test the nerves of everyone here, just for kicks. Would your mother approve?
A conscience is natures way of telling you that something’s going wrong. It’s motherly — emotional and smart, all at once — and it’s soft spoken. It keeps you from harm mostly because it keeps you from doing wrong and, thus, keeps your Karma positive.
In today’s super-transparent world, we need to tune her in, turn up the volume and take heed. When things go bad, everyone everywhere knows and instant Karma’s gonna get you. On the flip side, society wins when its members have a conscience. So listen up: That’s your mother talking.
But can we do it?
I’m not too optimistic. I’m particularly pessimistic when I consider the case of the owner vs mom battle at Marcy’s Diner in Portland, Maine. There, everything evidently ran clear off the rails and a reset down the road is unlikely.
The sad sequence of events: A mother tolerates her out-of-control toddler while out to eat, forcing the owner of the diner to lose her control on the toddler, leading to an overt embarrassment of the toddler’s parents, prompting the mother to unleash a backlash against the diner owner — all brought to you for your enjoyment by the world wide web.
Once on the web’s — a completely different forum of social consciousness — it took on a life of its own. All shapes and sizes jumped into the fray. Opinions and barbs were shared as lines were drawn, offenses taken and defenses mounted.
And everyone took their lumps: The mom for her “bad parenting.” The restaurant owner for verbal attacks on a child. The child for catching the flak of those intimidating screams. The restaurant patrons for witnessing this debacle. And, not to be left out, the rest of us for having to listen to this horror story of modern inconvenience over and over again.
With clear hindsight, we can all be righteous about this. The mom needed to manage the toddler or leave. The restaurant owner needed to find another way befitting someone in the “hospitality” business. At a minimum, in the middle of it, someone somewhere should have asked the question: Would my mother approve?
What’s left from the wreckage is what’s next: A toddler who’s mother evidently would approve of bad behavior. The new generation, raised by the child-worshipping parents and allowed to act without conscious, is sure to run rough over everything, as their mother’s would tacitly approve.
And, to make matters worse, the web turns bad behavior into stardom. No such thing as bad publicity, right Mr. Dillinger? The restaurant we never heard that stood up against the wild child has a ballooning fan base of followers on Facebook.
That’s where we going, the land of the absurd. You want to get known? Think of something that would make your mother cower. Go do it and film it. Edit it and post in the most dramatic way you can think of. In fact, do it a way that would go deep under your mother’s skin. That ought to work — and does.
We’re doomed. I want my mommy.
Zebell & Partners Market Development 