If You’ve Got Nothing, Just Admit It.

I just spent and entirely fruitless half hour searching the internet for a picture.

We’ve been in Las Vegas with my daughter this past weekend at a national dance convention. She’s had a great season and had some nice kudos along the way.

I was trying to find a picture of her on the internet since all of MY stuff is on my home computer. A search on her name brought back a couple, and by this I mean maybe three, decent results but it also brought back, among other extraneous things, a link to a web site on the Chinese Tarot written almost entirely IN Chinese except for where it translates Chinese into Latin.

Now, I get it when it brings backs a picture with some random “Fletcher” in it but the Chinese Tarot? Really?

In an attempt to bring back multiple results the search algorithm must have chosen something that I’m sure makes technical sense but in the real world provides no practical value. And THAT made me wonder…

How often do we do that? How often do we try to provide SOMETHING when it would be best to admit we’ve got nothing?

Businesses do it all the time if they believe they have a solution that comes somewhere close to answering a potential customer problem.

Politicians do it all the time by restating a question to move it from something they don’t want to answer into something for which they have prepared answer.

Maybe I’m just worn out by several days in a town that seems to be built on the empty promise that your life can be perfect if you just have the right amount of money. And if you don’t have the right amount of money then by investing the right amount in gambling you’ll increase your odds of getting the right amount of money to make your life perfect…at least while you’re here.

Maybe I’m just feeling that the world needs a little more Simon Cowell like honesty in it…perhaps without the sarcastic edge…but he essentially tells people they can’t sing, they should save their time and effort and choose something else.

Maybe I’m worn out by the angst coming from all these parents at this dance convention some of whom are seeing their kid as the next star on “So You Think You Can Dance” when really they should just be encouraging the kid that it is good they’re trying hard and getting exercise.

Somewhere along the way being directly honest, “I’ve got nothing for you” or “This isn’t your thing”, seems to have gotten a bad rap and has been replaced by “No really, if that’s what you want let me see what I can find that is at least two steps removed and holds out a modicum of hope without being dishonest.”

And that’s how you wind up with Chinese Tarot.

Perhaps you’re feeling this post is a reflection of that. That I should have admitted I had nothing for a Monday morning and saved you the time and trouble of having read it. Fair enough…I’ll take that.  🙂 But I’ll still finish with a question:

Where do you wish you could get a little more of the direct kind of honesty that, in the end, saves time?