Singular Enhancement Optimization: Personal Decisions Matter

By Dan Coleman

A popular unspoken belief is that living in a free society means a person is at liberty to do what one wants, when one wants, without accountability to anyone, as long as no law is broken. The following story provides evidence to reject this notion by illustrating how a young boy’s decisions affected others.

An early childhood accident left a boy with a reconstructed ankle and subsequent nerve damage. The lad was principally able to play as other kids did, but more cautiously. 

Limited sensory stimulation in his right foot meant the boy was able to decipher between a rock, a piece of wood, and even a very hot surface like sun-heated asphalt. This was not true when the surfaces differed in texture, like coarse surfaces from smooth ones. Due to his age, the boy usually did not remember to expect contrasting sensations from each foot. No pain signals from the brain for the healthy foot did not always mean all was well with the other. 

As the boy ascended the ladder from the pool, he felt water dripping from his hair, back, and swimming trunks. He was making his way back toward his chair when a very loud scream made him stop and turn. At the far end of the pool, submerged while standing at the steps, was a woman pointing at him.

Petrified by the sudden attention and confusion of reaction, the boy attempted to assess the situation. Thinking back to his last plunge, the boy remembered hearing two splashes. The first splash was of a boy standing behind him, and the second was unknown. Preoccupied with racing out of the pool, climbing the ladder and rejoining the diving board line, the boy redirected his attention to the woman’s scream.

A trail of bloodied footprints had followed him to where he currently stood. Unaware of the source of the footprints, he began to trace them back to the origin. The chlorinated water had an anesthetic effect on the raw tissue of his foot, so he had not felt enough pain to notice what had happened. The coarse diving board and cement deck had scrubbed the flesh off the ball of his foot.  

Petrified by confusion and embarrassment, the boy stood frozen as he looked around and saw eyes staring. The boy responsible for the first splash ascended the ladder and whispered, “I splashed water on the board so you wouldn’t get in trouble.” 

A feeling of warmth enclosed the bloody-footed boy as he recognized the effort of a supportive stranger. “You’re so cool for having my back, but I wish you would have told me before you jumped.” 

The two boys stared at each other for a moment before the first splash boy realized the bloody-footed boy did not know he was bleeding.

(Yours truly was that boy.) Instead of gloating eyes viewing me, I had to deal with adults and children alike leaving the pool area glancing toward me like I had leprosy. When I think back to the experience, I would use the word ‘whisked’ away to describe the departure of those around me. For example, the parents of the boy who jumped in the pool after me, seemed very eager to get him away from me. The manager told me to stay in my chair because they were looking for my parents. The splash boy even saw me sitting out there alone and ran over to tell me he was heading down to the beach. He heard his mom’s voice and sprinted away like a frightened deer without another word. Leaving me alone feeling deflated and guilty. Eventually the deck emptied and some of the hotel employees began working on the pool. My dad and my sister were eventually found down on the beach building a sand castle. When my dad finally arrived, he brought me a bandage and a sock so I could walk away. 

The texture of the pool deck and diving board were not my responsibility. Nevertheless, my presence created an obligation to consider how my right to use the pool, if exercised carelessly, might adversely affect other guests. Acknowledging my age and the process of learning what being careful meant for me, I started a new habit of wearing a thick sock or flip-flops when using the pool. My expectation for myself was I would not use any pool unprotected. If only there had been aquatic footwear then!

Some have argued I had the same right as any guest at the inn to use the pool, protected or not. While that reality may be unimpeachable, equally inalterable are the facts that the pool had to be closed to all guests while the deck was sanitized and the pool water re-chlorinated to filter out traces of my blood or tissue. 

If a young boy’s sole decision whether to use a pool without protection had the power to impact the health, safety, and vacation experience of more than one hundred people, consider the exponential impact of those same 100 people. Stubbornly insisting on my right to use the pool would create only strife between hotel staff, my parents, other guests, and me. Part of entities at all levels working cohesively as the theory calls for is the willingness to constructively give and to humbly receive honest input. All attempts toward sustained prosperity depend on it. 

The new political theory previously discussed, Isolation Moderation, has not escaped the attention of prior readers. They are, therefore, presumably aware that the theory is entirely avant-garde and is not easily dismissed. It carries promise for multi-level problem resolution around the globe.

It is incredulously simple yet explosive with potential. Prior readers are also aware that the theory calls for units ranging from individuals up the chain to individual nations to self-inventory so that strengths are optimized and potentials realized. Therein lie the keys to happiness and prosperity at home and at the nation’s capitol.

The theory advocates a change of mind – antithetical to the cut-throat approach all-too-often taken in the pursuit of prosperity. Inclusive in that mindset shift is the commitment to a non-aggressive posture in the living room as well as at the capitol. A core concern that reaches beyond individual interests begins to permeate society from the bottom up. 

Imagine tax dollars saved and an increase of sustainable solution rates augmented, if local law enforcement, state governmental entities, and the federal government were to cheerfully and easily work together. Dream of an Homeowners Association (HOA) that is harmonious rather than back-biting. Imagine the number of post-market customer service calls eliminated if production employees were to adopt the mindset that the deliverable is a collective effort whose quality is everyone’s business. 

Every decision to pick up or properly dispose of trash counts as much as doing one’s absolute best at every turn. Why? Because selfless decisions multiply exponentially. Components of the theory are a highly communicable, desirable, and effective social contagion.  

Will you be the nation that causes loss to all as overfishing causes extinction of marine species because you stubbornly insist on your right to fish international waters at any time of the year? Or, will you simply be the small child at a pool that inconveniences himself to protect others as well as himself?

Which decision will be yours?

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Intrigued… check out the next application of this theory

Lost… refer to the previous explanation