The thing I like about surveys is the fact that they survey. Oh yes they do. To define it…. they investigate the opinions or experience of people by asking them questions. They want my opinion. And your opinion too.
Heaven knows… we all have opinions. And if someone asks mine? I’ll give it to them.
Surveys are so nifty… they even created a Game Show around this concept. It is called Family Feud. I used to watch it a long time ago…. like in the mid-1970s. They create these goofy questions and then ask a “panel of people” for the best answers. Like…. “Name Something People Are Often Chased by in Movies.” And the number one answer is…. Monsters. Number 2… Cars. Three… Cops. And on and on. It is pretty silly, all in all. However, I think I would like to be on one of those panels.
I would throw the old curve ball on a regular basis.
These days, the internet / online world is filled with the survey. Everybody wants your opinion, on every experience you’ve had. And I love a good survey. I truly do.
I fill them out every chance I get. Just this morning, I fired up some software on my computer. Its purpose is to clean out old junk files, and system cache, and that sort of thing. There happened to be a software update. After it was complete, it asked if I would like to take a survey.
“Better than DisneyWorld,” I said. “I’m in.”
The part I like is when they ask for your comments. Most of the time… it comes after the “rating” questions. It is the best when they ask them after each question. To follow this morning’s adventure….
“How would you rate our software’s performance?” 0 being terrible, 5 being outstanding. (And then you fill out the dot under the number.) 5.
THEN…. comes the comment time… when they ask “What made you give us that rating?”
NOW… the curve ball.
“I gave you that rating because I am amazed how you all can shrink down into tiny little people and sneak into my hard drive with little squeegees. Magically, a little team of you finds your way in there, and scrubs that hard drive squeaky clean! Do you use mops too? Can I call you Mr. Clean, or are you a Mrs. Clean? At any rate, thanks a million. I could not have done it without you.”
I go on and on with these things. If someone actually reads these responses, I wonder what they are thinking once my comes across the screen.
Yes, the questionnaire. It is all fine and good as long as it is about someone else. But the truth is, maybe WE should take the survey. There is a premise…. that we should ….every one of us… take a moral inventory at the end of each day. How did we do? Were we kind? Were we selfish? Were we helpful? Were we truthful? Did we hurt anyone? Did we diminish another’s character? Or… did we help? Did we make this world a little better, in any little way?
We assess and we measure, and we do it honestly. Our moral integrity. Ourselves. And. In the areas or circumstances in which we have faltered? We try to make good. And in the ways we have succeeded? We try to repeat those behaviors again and again.
The survey. And the number one answer is……
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“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters”
― Albert Einstein
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“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”
― John Wooden
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“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”
― Mark Twain
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