Somebody Do Something!

In my diverse wanderings about the world, I experience variable angst about “the way things are”.  And, when things aren’t the way they should be, I catch myself thinking “Somebody should do something about THAT!”  (Quite inauspiciously, at this very moment, I have a dripping water tap in the bathroom which needs fixing.  Grumph-frumph-frumph!  Somebody really does need to do something about that!) 

Then, without missing a beat, a still, small voice inside me says, “If YOU’RE somebody – and if you’re anybody of any account – YOU do it!”   

Of course, if you’re nobody,

you don’t sweat the small stuff!

In my previous real-life, work-a-day role in administration, I would frequently encounter disorderliness in anything from a refrigerator (salvaged from the loading dock) that needed defrosting – or decontaminating … to dust bunnies in stairwells … to errant trash in the hallways or surrounding grounds … to a piano out of tune ... to phones that needed to be answered … to a jammed copier … etc.  But we were a “skeleton crew” at the mercy of support services that had many other priorities and significant delays in response.  So if it needed to be done NOW, guess who got “fingered”?  [NOTE: Most of this stuff could be sandwiched between comings and goings with very little extra time or effort involved. (The refrigerator stuff I did on Saturdays or Sundays while catching up on more mainstream essentials).  And simply doing it and having it DONE kept all of us from tripping over it … i.e., from thinking “Somebody should DO something about that!”]  I once went ballistic with a security guard/parking attendant posted at the front traffic circle of our main building, who was blithely asleep-on-his-feet without regard to accumulating wind-blown refuse from a nearby waste receptacle.  I thought I could provide a positive example, or perhaps even “shame” him into action, by picking it up myself. It turned out to be a wasted thought; he was somebody who wouldn’t be caught dead stooping to such a level!     

I’m guessing that part of my sense-of-duty and angst about small things awry is about ownership.  I don’t relish being part of anything that isn’t all it can or should be.  I don’t deny that some of the angst could be an OCD aberration.  But part of it is also about fighting attrition – feeling compelled to resist anything suggestive of the world “going to Hell in a hand basket”.  Whatever the driving force, a sense of “doneness” is wonderfully therapeutic.

Gotta go fix a water drip.

There is much to be done in the world to make it all it can and should be.  When you’re caught thinking “Somebody should do something about that!”, you’re IT.  Either call in the troops for help or stoop to it, DO it and move on.   Be somebody – and DO something!  Quartermaster