The Obvious Question

Are the demands of organized sports today are ruining kids’ childhoods? Far from the informal pick-up games that we were used to as kids, today’s sports are taking up many hours in a kid’s week and can seem to be anything but “just for fun”. Are we wrong to make them do it?

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Nobody feels great about being talked about when they're not present (especially when it isn’t good), but we all seem to do it anyway. What keeps us from being direct with the people around us? We see this all the time at work with meetings that rarely take place IN the actual meeting (the real conversation always seems to happen in the halls, cubes, and offices outside the meeting). So what is going on here, and what can we do to make things better?

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This week we try to answer a question from one of our listeners, Joel, who asks, “What if a person makes what is perceived to be a bad decision but it works out. Does that make it a good decision in the end?” He gives the example of a hockey player who makes a super risky pass that almost results in a turnover, but it winds up going to the intended recipient and the team scores…does the coach rip him a new one for the risky pass or is it OK because they scored?

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There is a lot of losing in life - everything from business deals to relationships to elections, but to many people (especially those who live in Bob’s neck of the woods, Atlanta, GA) the Falcons’ loss to the New England Patriots was truly devastating. Why is this? Why do we seem to need and accept the emotional toll that comes with losing something that we’re not even playing?

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What do you stand for in your day-to-day life. What principal do you put yourself at risk for? What stance do you take that could cost you your job? What position do you take that could cost you your life?

We recorded this in October of 2016, when San Francisco 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick chose to sit during the playing of the National Anthem at football games in order to protest the treatment of black people and people of color in the United States. This question, though, is even more alive as very recently millions of people protested the inauguration of Donald Trump, and continue to participate in protests on a myriad of issues. As you’ll hear in our discussion, we try to draw a distinct (and tough) line between principals that we quietly and safely support to like-minded individuals, and those that might place us at risk - the ones where we’re really challenging ourselves...what do we stand for?

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Picture yourself watching a movie in a theater all alone or having dinner in a restaurant by yourself - just you. Does that sound awesome... or like a nightmare? This week’s question is about how free we feel to do exactly what we want to do when we want to do it, and not because some law is stopping us, but because we stop ourselves. If you have a free afternoon - just you...no one else...do you feel free to do exactly what you want to do, or do you stop yourself?

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Often along with the new year come resolutions for self-improvement - a time to take a look at ourselves and commit to improving things in our lives, but do we really focus on the things that matter? Are there areas in our lives that we really should be improving, but we’re blind to them and don’t even know to make resolutions to change them? How can we find out what these things are?

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Why do we have the propensity to take for granted the good things in our lives to such an extent that we ruin them? Why do we have a tendency to sometimes not cherish the goodness that already exists and instead throw it away for something that may or may not be better?

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A 2013 story on CNN.com reported that over 100,000 people want to be part of the Mars One project to colonize the red planet beginning in 2022. So you might be really into this...you can never return to Earth, but you’ll be part of a very special society - the first of its kind, so….what should that society look like? What laws do you bring? What rights? Who runs what, and what happens if it starts to fall apart? Presuming it is and international community, which governing philosophy should win out? What language?

There is a lot to think about, and 2022 is right around the corner, so what do you think?

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This episode’s question comes word-for-word from a recent tweet from Peter Diamondis. Peter Diamondis is the Chairmen of the Space X Foundation and generally accepted super forward thinker (along with guys like Elon Musk and Ray Kurzweil). Peter’s tweet points back to his blog, (http://www.diamandis.com/blog/designer-babies). In his blog entry, he points to the absolutely incredible advances in genetics that are here today and some that are only a heartbeat away - things like reproduction without sex, genetically modifying a fetus in the womb, and freezing eggs and sperm in donors’ twenties for use when they’re in their forties. But for all the incredible science that this represents, it comes with huge ethical questions - in some cases, they are the ultimate example of, “just because you can do something, does that mean that you should?”, and where do you draw the line?

As you’ll hear, we wrestle with this question - we wonder if there is a slippery slope to things that are absolutely a good idea, to those that are way out of line and doomed to come back and bite us. So what do you think? What else do we need to think of that we’re missing?

Check out the conversation and then let us know what you think at obviousquestion.wordpress.com or on our FaceBook page @obviousquestion

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