How powerful do you feel in your everyday life?

This question is mostly in regards to the behavior of those around you--family, friends, co-workers, strangers, even pets.

Do you feel like what they do is mostly in line with what you think is acceptable? If someone speaks or acts in a way you think is wrong, do you feel like you have the power (legal, social, political, verbal, whatever) to stop them?

Or, do things that bother you happen all the time? When people behave in ways that you find wrong, troublesome, or annoying, do you feel like you can do nothing to stop it?

In addition to your votes, I'd like to know your gender, age, location, profession, and how you think that affects your vote.

thanks,
JD

I do believe I have the power to stop it, but I believe I live in a society whose nonchalant attitudes make any action I take ineffective. I also believe that it is nearly impossible to change behaviors in a society which will not admit to having behavior problems in the first place, such as in the US. We are constantly catered to by both our capitalist and our democratic systems, so we truly believe we are obligated to certain intangibles in life that, frankly, we're not always obligated to.

Think of the future as a terminal illness and you might enjoy these final years before economic/peak oil/environmental/societal/whatever collapse.

I know. I can't think that way either. Fortunately, for everything else, there's Masturcard...


Note: Age 35, male, have endured a life of unique pain, balanced by a lifetime of isolating entertainment to compensate. Funny how I feel losing my TV means more to me than my life, but meh.

if you mean punks in the park or rude people in public--lots, but empowered

Hence the Lounge posting, not GD :)

I don't necessarily feel I have the power or the right to dictate to others what is "acceptable." If the behavior is one that is overtly harmful to myself or others, that's another story but it sounds like you're speaking more of stuff that I'd find annoying.

That sort of stuff I don't worry about. I think it saps more energy from me to stress about someone else's behavior than it does to simply live my life and not worry about them. If they behave so stupidly that I can't stand to be around them, I don't hang around them. If it's at work, I shrug and let it roll off.

In the case of abusive or harmful behavior, I'm more likely to step in or call an authority. But I don't see a lot of that - mostly I just see stupid people. Whom I ignore. :hi:

female, 46, California, retail drone, have no idea

I feel like in the flamiest threads in GD and GDP, there is a cognitive dissonance between people who assume wrongs can be righted and people who are used to letting them slide. I've been both.

solidly middle class, good marriage, similar politics with family.

I've been lucky. made some good choices. Not any wrondoing around here in the serious sense of things.

I've gone from one extreme to the other very recently. I was low income in one of the roughest neighborhoods in California and now I'm making decent money and living in a quiet suburban-ish small town. In the old circumstance I never would have thought to report a crime (possibly because I could spend all day and all night doing it), but here I would probably call someone out if they dropped a paper bag on the ground. It's just weird how our circumstances change our sense of how much control we have.

You sure do want a lot of information!