TELL ME ABOUT STUPID
I have been assured it’s not stupid because:
- It seemed like a good idea at the time.
- I had a lot to drink, smoke, or was otherwise drugged.
- Everyone was doing it.
- I did it on a bet.
- All my friends agreed — it was the right thing to do.
- I’m an ignorant ass.
IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME
This only works if you had an idea … and followed it to a logical conclusion. In other words, you were thinking about the decision. If you just did it because you were there, it or he was also there, so y’know, shit happened? That IS stupid. Sorry, but saying it seemed like a good idea doesn’t make it one. Anything done by reflex or without thought? Stupid.
I WAS DRUNK
You had too much to drink? Were really incredibly high? You took a handful of drugs?
Why would any of these things make you less stupid?
EVERYONE WAS DOING IT
As your mom used to say, “If everyone is jumping off the roof, does that mean you should do it too?” If your mom wouldn’t buy it when you were six, what makes you think anyone would buy it now that you’re … fiftyish?
Yup. Stupid.
I DID IT ON A BET
Even you think that was stupid, right?
ALL MY FRIENDS AGREED IT WAS THE BEST CHOICE
Since when are your friends, family, co-workers, shrink, or that guy you met while checking out your groceries, become the people who will decide on your future life? Since when does anyone but you count in your final decision to do anything?
I’M AN IGNORANT ASS
Right. Stupid. Because ignorance is not something you were given at birth. Ignorance is a choice.
YOU KNEW IT WAS THE WRONG CHOICE. WE ALWAYS KNOW.
When everything you know about right and wrong is telling you the choice you are about to make is wrong or bad for you — and you do it anyway? For whatever reason? That IS stupid. I’m not talking about deciding whether you should buy bananas or apples, or which television show to watch. I’m talking about decisions that will affect your life and possibly the lives of other people.
When you have an important decision to make, you are the one who gets to decide. What your friends think is neither here nor there. They have nothing to do with your understanding of right, wrong, good and evil … not to mention the larger context of who else lives in your world.
Sure, it’s possible to be intelligent and make a bad choice. We’ve all done it. It remains a stupid choice. The concept of choice and decision requires your judgments be the result of reason. If you typically make decisions without thought, do stuff you know in your gut goes is wrong, you can’t go back and say ‘Oh, it seemed like a good idea.”
No. It didn’t. It wasn’t the right idea, even when you made it. Maybe you did it out of spite or jealousy. Maybe you did it to prove something to yourself or someone else.
It’s still STUPID.
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Categories: Anecdote, Humor, intelligence, Quotation
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
I wish my 5th grade students could read this!!
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Maybe rephrased, they might understand it. It’s a thought! Thank you. You just set my mind in a whole new direction!
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Interesting comment about ‘Our’ Lord. Christians refer to Christ as Our Lord and Christ encouraged his disciples to drink wine with a meal. His disciples in the New Testament (1 Cor 6) say everything is permissable but not everything is profitable to you, and also that there should be moderation, not excess.
I do like this quote though…
EPHESIANS 5:18
Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit,
In other words: drink wine in moderation so as to not be a drunk, but Fill up on Jim, Jack and Johnny instead! 🙂
I think that was the intention of Paul? Maybe i had too much to drink?
love.
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It’s a quote from a TV show made in England. i didn’t make it up and it wasn’t there to make a theological discussion. It’s humor. That’s all. Nothing more…
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I’d like to add one more point to the list – I thought I could get away with it.
Leslie
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I’m pretty sure that’s a double down on “It was a bet.” There are some kinds of stupid that no one can wriggle out of 😀
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chuckle …I’m getting my afternoon laughter in spades.
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exactly. Let someone else walk across the wobbly bridge first.
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I’m even willing to let them walk across it and come BACK again. No wobbly bridge for me, folks 🙂
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IF there’s a wobbly bridge left for them (and if they are still left also) to come back on! 😉
love
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Reblogged this on Espiritu en Fuego/A Fiery Spirit and commented:
I can’t be anymore direct or truthful than this blog post. I will only add that it is a good idea to learn from others mistakes and bad decisions. Then you know what not to do.
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it’s remarkable how few people learn from others. Especially kids. They are SURE they have it all nailed down. I comfort myself knowing that one day, they will be frustrated trying to talk to a kid of their own … or at least, some kid. Somewhere 😀
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I think the worst stupid choices are the ones you make because you fear someone or something. When you’re afraid you tend to also be irrational. You can think all you want, but a lot of the ideas in this state will be stupid. I have a lot of compassion for fearful people making stupid decisions because they can’t even blame it on being drunk. Instead they blame themselves, grow more fearful and then again more irrational.
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I have family members like that and it’s a killer. The thing is, the decision keep getting worse. Just when you think they CAN’T get worse, it does. Now, it’s a national epidemic. We are so terrified of TERRORIST OMG that we are willing to become this scaredy-cat nation, hiding behind locked doors, letting the Big People make our decisions for us.
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I think the things you do when you are no longer the sober you are in a totally different category than the things you do sober. One implies lack of implulse control, the other implies ignoring the sound of the train whistle behind you.
At least while drunk/high/whatever you can always blame it on foreign substances. What excuse to you have when you march into it totally awake and fully functional?
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I always thought getting drunk or stoned IS stupid, but generally we all know “drunk/stoned” isn’t a great time to make important decisions.
Now, we have massive sections of citizenry who seem to be as stupid as drunks making national decisions. Maybe they SHOULD take up drinking. It could only improve things.
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I REALLY don’t believe that it would actually! Foolishness and stupid choices are open ended things – just when you think you’ve seen THE most stupid/foolish thing or person ever, another one pops up to beat it!
More frequently by someone under the influence of one or several drugs.
I believe the man, for want of a better word, who drove over people on the sidewalk in NY recently was high on Cannabis AND PHP! Seems like just one drug is not enough for many people these days???
Personally, i do not believe the disgustingly named ‘recreational’ or social drugs provide any answers, quite the reverse, they cause more and harder problems than the ones for which some sort of ‘relief’ is claimed as the reason they are used.
love.
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Recreational is like one beer. That is recreational. One drink. A couple of hits on a joint. A mountain of hash or dope AND PCP? PCP is not recreational, ever.
We can’t keep labeling everything that isn’t booze as criminal. They are not all the same and some have valid medical uses, as well. My cardiologist wants me to use pot because it strongly lowers blood pressure. My problem is that it makes me cough — a LOT — and it makes me a bit giddy, which is a problem older people have anyway. So unless I’m on my way to bed when i don’t care, it’s not great for me anymore. But it absolute drops my blood pressure by at least 20 point up and down, and that when you have a serious heart problem, is not a small thing. Don’t be so quick to condemn. There are many things about which we don’t know.
Did you know that nothing will stop a very serious cough as well as heroin? Nothing anyone makes will do the job as well as a single drop of the stuff. Of course, they aren’t allowed to use it, so kids hack themselves into a coma. Pot is also a great pressure reliever for eyes with glaucoma, too. And on and on. NOT every drug has benefits beyond getting you high. Far as I know, booze just rots your liver and kidneys, but that’s legal.
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I agree – there are indeed many things about which we (as somewhat enlightened and informed adults) do not know. My comments though were referring both to the uninformed – or just don’t give a #### – who take drugs, not for genuine medical complaints, or even to seriously treat the level of depression they feel from having to live their life, but just because their mates all do it (” everyone does it!!” well no, actually, NOT everyone does, or should) or because they like how it feels to be off their faces – regardless of any destructive or harmful influences it bears upon themselves, or worse, their victims they injure/endanger from their stupid selfish actions.
As for the beneficial effects you mention it is my firm belief they should be researched and applied only via reputable doctors and should never be included under the common misperception of ‘recreational’ drugs.
These days even prescription drugs are abused and can kill – Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger and a host of famous and not famous others.
A drug should never, in my mind, be used primarily as a ‘recreation’. There are literally millions of better for the community, and self, ways to recreate. hence my claim regarding the ridiculous and common use of the term.
In my mind it is not worth the risk that one moment’s uncontrolled stupidity should be the reason for a lifetime of regret, or of no longer having a lifetime at all.
As you may guess – i detest drug use other than for the controlled easing of a medical condition. I make enough stupid mistakes while in full control of my brain, i don’t want to risk what could happen if my faculties are impaired through various consciousness altering substances.
love
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And that is your opinion and many people agree with you. I’m not one of them. Because in all of these years, I have never done anything likely to endanger anyone’s life, including my own. Ever. In more than 50 years. I’m sure there are people who are less sensible about what they do when they drink, but the people I know are careful. And, oh by the way, drinking is the one that does the most damage almost everywhere. Alcohol is the last fully legal drug and it’s a killer.
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Agreed! I wish that people could engage and have fun – wild abandonment even, if the moment calls for it – without having to resort to alcohol to do it. I was one of the few who mostly took orange juice or lemonade to parties and still found i could have a great time along with the mildly tipsy to the very drunk.
In Australia in my youth it was practically an unwritten rule that when you went to parties you took your choice of booze with you. This resulted ( usually when combined with the level of car ownership we all had) in more than a few deaths. It never stopped anyone (either drinking at or driving to parties) as far as i could see. 😦
love.
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The slaughter on the highways exceeds the deaths by war. Booze is a killer in more than one way, too.
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I love this Marilyn! what’s that saying- stupid is as stupid does- just popped into my head though I am not even sure its meaning. 🙂
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Yup. I love the “it seemed like a good idea at the time.” Because you know and I know and they know …. No. It wasn’t a good idea. Not then. Not now.
Stupid is as stupid does and down-the-road excuses? Really?
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Loved the “Father Brown” line about sobriety. The big guy wasn’t clear about it. Hallelujah !!
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