I have several little nieces and nephews in my life. In doing so I have watched them grow from being these little babies, to these children that run all over my house when they visit. They are a lot of fun, but some of them have the most nasty of habits. For example, my oldest nephew has this habit of sucking on his thumb. No matter what we do or say, "wham" it goes right back in. We even put some "pepper juice" and "hot sauce" on it and yet he still sucked on his thumb. Well he is not my child so maybe one day he will grow up to stop such a disgusting habit. The only thing is, it seems that children start sucking on their thumbs, stop, and then grow up to suck on their feet. Why do I say that?
Well it seems in this life I have known more people who like to put their foot in their mouth, then I have known ones who don't. I myself have tried for years to get out of this habit, and yet I will be sitting their with the best of intentions and "wham" I do it again. I have tried to tie it down to the floor, or maybe even forget it can even be done. Yet it never fails I will come into a room, someone will say something that bothers me and "wham" ... there we go again, "open mouth, insert foot." Is this something I alone suffer from?
Well at least I know in this life, from what I have observed, about 99% of us adults suffer from "foot in mouth fascination." Oh, of course, some of us will claim we don't and say that we never do anything of the kind. Then one day we walk into the room and they have both of their size nine's firmly in placed in the oral cavity. It seems to be that it is also very contagious, in that when we see people who have done this we try to assist them. Only to find that we sit down, insert our own foot, and join them. Is there any hope for us as a culture, when we are so flexible as to put our foot in the mouth whenever it suits us?
I think there is, and I think that part of that cure. Is accepting that no matter how far someone really shoved that foot in, no matter if it was only the toes or right to the ankle. We have all been around long enough to know, that where they are, we once were ourselves. So perhaps we might try to nail that foot down real tight. We might put pepper or hot sauce on our toes, to help us to remember not to put it inside. We might get disgusted with what happens when we see others doing it to themselves. In the end though, we just have to realize "it might be them now, but one day it will be ourselves."
So when I see my nephew with his thumb in his mouth, perhaps I should tell him "keep that in their as long as you want, because what follows is something else much harder to break the habit of."
No one is perfect, that I have met in real life or online, but everyone is flexible enough to get their foot up to their face about mouth high.
My thought
Dragon
Edited by - kenpodragon on 19 October 2002 19:29:31