What I didn’t know that day was that exactly 19 days later Cathy was going to die at age 37. My wife, my children’s mom, my whole life, was going to die 456 hours later. And I just wasted 3 of those hours in a room with a crazy lady trying to do the impossible: Change a mind.
I was a high school basketball coach for a long time. As such I dealt with many individuals (mostly parents) who had, let’s call it, trouble confronting the truth when it came to players’ abilities. One mom in particular stands out. In the middle of our season she forced me into a meeting with my athletic director and principal of the school I where coached.
This mom insisted her son was gifted and that my coaching decisions (primarily the decision to have her sophomore son play on JV instead of moving him up to varsity) were the main impediment to him playing for Michigan State someday. I pointed out to this woman that her son, while a nice kid and decent shooter, had gone through some physical changes between freshman and sophomore year. Specifically, he had put on about 30 pounds and had become even slower than he was a year earlier. She banged the table and immediately said that it was my fault.
“You had the boys on that crazy pre-season conditioning program. It was all that weight training you had these guys do…”
I smiled and told her, no, it wasn’t weights he’d been lifting too many of, it was bags of Cheetos. And if she would like we could have the young man remove his shirt and we can all have a look at who was right. She refused and my flippant attitude (albeit factually correct) sent her further into what my mother used to call a hissy fit.
We spent more than 3 hours in that room together. Then I went home to my wife Cathy and our kids. Frustrated and exhausted. Nothing I said convinced this woman that 1) her son was NOT in fact going to ever play for Tom Izzo nor, 2) none of what was happening physically to her son was my fault. We spent 3 hours beating our heads against the intellectual wall with each other. And in the end, we were right back where we started.
What I didn’t know that day was that exactly 19 days later Cathy was going to die at age 37. My wife, my children’s mom, my whole life, was going to die 456 hours later. And I just wasted 3 of those hours in a room with a crazy lady trying to do the impossible: Change a mind.
These days I’m seeing more and more friends on social media become caught up in political discussions that quickly descend into name-calling, smack talking, fact ignoring, and worse. It’s important to note that never, in the history of social media, has anyone ever changed another’s mind. Ever. Just as I will never get my sons to understand that Walter Payton was greater than Barry Sanders, and Michael Jordan was greater than… well, everyone, no one else has ever convinced anyone of anything on Facebook, or Twitter, or Instagram, that they didn’t already believe.
But we press on. We keep trying to get our friends to vote a certain way. We keep posting links to political ads and ridiculous “memes”. We chase that hit of dopamine. That chemical high that comes from checking our phone nine times in ten minutes, all in hopes we might get three “Likes” for our last (brilliant) mic-drop comment or post.
So, this is my suggestion: The next time you go looking for that phony high… the next time you take keyboard in hand and think about “changing minds”, don’t. Just don’t. Half the people already agree with you and the other half never will. By posting you will do nothing to change minds, everything to piss of half the people you know, and in the end, get a cheap high because maybe you actually got 5 Likes this time. (If you don’t believe me about how cheap the thrill is, watch how quickly the comments here become about Walter Payton and Michael Jordan… In other words, everything but the point.)
Instead, how about this: Do something generous. Go volunteer at your local non-profit. I’m certain your community has dozens of them. Or better yet, start one of your own. My wife and I did. And I can tell you from experience, the good you’ll do and the high you get lasts a lot longer. It’s real. And unlike anything that gets written here or in the comments below, it matters.
And you never know. The next mind you change might just be your own.
