Nothing in this world is guaranteed, nothing. Whether it be reaching old age healthy (or reaching it at all) to even crossing the street without ending up street pizza, no one simply knows until after the goal has been achieved successfully. Now of course one can analyze all the contributing factors to their success in retrospect so they can enlighten others wishing to follow in their footsteps. Yet even after they've dispensed wisdom most deem foolproof, these successful achievers still can't grant guarantees with 100% certainty. Essentially undergoing a task, it's essentially a gamble that the outcome will be reached successfully.
Why you ask?
Due to the fact that there exist too many contributing factors which can affect the desired outcome positively or negatively and these factors differ for each individual. This is why Medicine uses so much probability in dealing with disease. They will state that 90% of men who died of lung cancer where smokers, they can also say that there is a good chance that you as a smoker could develop lung cancer, but without looking at tests of your lungs and watching the results over time, they can’t look at you and say you WILL die of cancer because you smoke. One has to consider other mitigating factors such as genetic history, your current physical health, your diet, your current rate of smoking, and even where you work.
Why you ask?
Due to the fact that there exist too many contributing factors which can affect the desired outcome positively or negatively and these factors differ for each individual. This is why Medicine uses so much probability in dealing with disease. They will state that 90% of men who died of lung cancer where smokers, they can also say that there is a good chance that you as a smoker could develop lung cancer, but without looking at tests of your lungs and watching the results over time, they can’t look at you and say you WILL die of cancer because you smoke. One has to consider other mitigating factors such as genetic history, your current physical health, your diet, your current rate of smoking, and even where you work.
All these factors work to skew the odds positively or negatively so every case may have to be handled differently, and as a result outliers exist. Consider tennis for example, a sport with quite a bit of emphasis on cardiovascular fitness. Most can’t play tennis regularly or on an elite level without having a decent level of cardiovascular development. However, Arthur Ashe still had heart issues despite his elite level conditioning. Now compare him to George Burns, the man wasn’t an athlete by any stretch of the imagination and lived to be 100 smoking stogies fairly often.
What’s the deal?
Obviously both Arther and George had some other mitigating factors which affected their unique outcomes right? Outliers they both where on different sides of the spectrum. So, where does that leave us? If nothing in this life is guaranteed then why care about the future at all? Why put any sort of positive investment in our potential interests if all were are really doing is merely gambling and hoping that our desired outcomes comes to pass? Well, the reason can be summed up in a great post Grerp made. Sure we may not be able to guarantee our desired outcome, but we can hedge our bets to increase the odds in our favor. If you want to lose weight, then of course if you start and maintain a workout program, that will increase your odds of success. In addition, you also now cut out fast food, that will increase your odds even further. If you get a workout partner whether your spouse or a close friend, this will increase your odds still further. What I’m saying is that the more you engage activities and behaviors which support your intended goal, you increase the odds of its achievement.
Hardly rocket science, but it also applies to the behaviors of other people and how they react to us. Let's put it like this.
As I grew up, I realized that racism was always going to be around. Just like the song from Avenue Q, everyone’ a little bit racist, and by that I mean every race on this planet. However, my parents made sure that my siblings and I realized that acting a certain way tended to arouse the wrong sort of attention from society and it was better to err on the side of caution and conform. EDIT; I also want to add that my parents let us kids know that yes, slavery was bad in the past, but walking around with a chip on my shoulder for 'whitey' wasn't going to do us any favors in the present or future. The point is simply this; I will never be fully accepted by every single member of other races despite my intent to avoid acting like a 50-Cent wannabe with a chip on my shoulder, BUT I will indeed be accepted more often than if I act like a thug hoodlum right?
Does that make sense?
Let's be honest, a woman can dress modestly, act demurely, and have her wits about her and yet still attract unwanted male attention. However, what sense does it make for a woman to dress and act provocatively amongst men she hardly knows and then get offended by their leering looks? Women don’t ask for attention from lower tier men, but it happens, and all any woman can do is guard against it. Hedge your bets, increase the odds that your desired outcome will be achieved, and/or decrease the odds that an unwanted outcome will occur. That’s how life works which is exactly what Grerp was trying to say. Whether you agree with it or not is irrelevant. Dressing modestly may not guarantee you won't get any unwanted male attention, but is anyone willing to debate that the woman on the top is going to get much more attention than the woman on the bottom?
As I grew up, I realized that racism was always going to be around. Just like the song from Avenue Q, everyone’ a little bit racist, and by that I mean every race on this planet. However, my parents made sure that my siblings and I realized that acting a certain way tended to arouse the wrong sort of attention from society and it was better to err on the side of caution and conform. EDIT; I also want to add that my parents let us kids know that yes, slavery was bad in the past, but walking around with a chip on my shoulder for 'whitey' wasn't going to do us any favors in the present or future. The point is simply this; I will never be fully accepted by every single member of other races despite my intent to avoid acting like a 50-Cent wannabe with a chip on my shoulder, BUT I will indeed be accepted more often than if I act like a thug hoodlum right?
Does that make sense?
Let's be honest, a woman can dress modestly, act demurely, and have her wits about her and yet still attract unwanted male attention. However, what sense does it make for a woman to dress and act provocatively amongst men she hardly knows and then get offended by their leering looks? Women don’t ask for attention from lower tier men, but it happens, and all any woman can do is guard against it. Hedge your bets, increase the odds that your desired outcome will be achieved, and/or decrease the odds that an unwanted outcome will occur. That’s how life works which is exactly what Grerp was trying to say. Whether you agree with it or not is irrelevant. Dressing modestly may not guarantee you won't get any unwanted male attention, but is anyone willing to debate that the woman on the top is going to get much more attention than the woman on the bottom?
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| Image c/o justlikemolly.com |
Doesn't more attention also mean an increase in UN-wanted attention? Isn't that the precise reason why Grerp didn't make a stink about the truck driver but simply stopped wearing a skirt which most likely increased the odds of men leering at her? Arguing that these women should or shouldn't recieve attention for their appearance is like arguing with the sun about the potential for sunburn. We can fill books and ledgers with useless prose on the subject and debate until the cows come home but here’s the point some either miss or ignore, that tonight a 20 year old girl is 'going out' looking like the woman on the top, and men will stare at her so why waste time debating something which cannot be changed?
I wholeheartedly agree with Grerp on her post and her approach. While acting in the manner she described may not work 100% of the time in regards to good men and their resulting reactions, I promise you it will work much more often than acting the opposite.
Omnipitron
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