Once upon a time (about 50 years ago), I was allowed to give a speech in front of my high school graduation class upon Commencement. Searching though my experiences (all of 17 whole years), I wanted to come up with a topic that, in my opinion, affected life the most. I decided upon the issue of apathy. I had been a letter writer to the local newspaper about wildlife issues and other issues made me believe that proactive behavior was the only way to make changes.
I think I bored 90%, or more, of the audience. They probably don't even remember the talk. Kind of a peculiar situation where the reaction was evidence for the theme. The saddest thing, however, is that (assuming I could find the speech) I could give the same speech today without varying much of anything.
So, what is apathy and why is it so important? It can take on a couple of different faces but each one is a matter of watching events continue on their course without trying to affect the direction, goals, or results. The stereotypical profile of apathy is sitting back on a couch eating a bowl of popcorn, and drinking a soda, and watching a television game show while your neighbors float down the street riding a mattress that has been washed out from their house during a flood that is going on. Just cannot be bothered or -- as our daughter might say -- "whatever".
Apathy can exist within the business world as well as the personal world. If all you do is what you are told then it is possible you really are a "replaceable cog" in the machinery. To fight apathy, and entropy, you must be heard and make a difference. "Yes people" need not apply. Of course, especially within a business environment, it takes multiple people to be able to change. If your manager is not open to input then the only thing your words can do is to bore them or anger them. I had a manager who claimed to be fully open to input but had a "stream of consciousness" form of telling the staff what was going on and there was no opportunity, no break in the stream of words, to give input. In order to give input, one would need to take notes so they could be responded to -- out of context -- once the speech was completed.
Note that apathy can also exist while being a participant. It is possible to be an active part of a group of people, a "movement", a political party, or event and still be apathetic because your existence is just a matter of another head. You nod "yes" to everything that is said or done without any reflection, research, or giving any input of your own. Acceptance, and following, without knowledge and awareness is yet another form of apathy. It is an apathy "in disguise" as you are swirling around in the midst of a series of rapids -- within the heart of a group of movement -- but not working with an oar or making any difference in the fate of the trip. Even on a roller coaster, if you are not contributing, then you still are just part of the environment.
Entropy has a number of different definitions but one is that of a "general decline into disorder". This certainly happens in my son's bedroom. It gets cleaned up and then, over a period of days or weeks, one more sock hits the floor and, at the end, the floor is findable only with a shovel. Most of life works that way -- the leaves fall from the trees and cover the ground, dust coats the furniture and eventually is able to provide soil for new plants to grow.
Apathy just leaves entropy alone. Only by challenging apathy does change happen and, for at least the time you are active, disorder gets moved back to some type of order. Challenging apathy? That's hard, as the first paragraph of this blog indicated. But there are ways...
