The Tipping Point

Life is about balance. It’s about knowing when to push, when to pull and when to leave things alone. It’s about making your statement loud enough to be heard, delivering it confidently enough to be believed, and stepping back so it can speak for itself. Continue to hammer your point in too hard or hang around too long, and your previously positive message runs the risk of ruin. In other words, you’ve passed your tipping point. 

Lately, it seems the Occupy Boston encampment has passed its tipping point. Occupy has the potential to be a voice for change, because even if we don’t understand exactly what they want, we are curious enough to listen while they figure it out. But recently, their physical location has received more attention than their message, causing the shifting tide to turn into a tidal wave, washing over their camp and leaving the debris and ruins of what it destroyed. At least that is what I saw when I walked down myself to check it out. No longer a gathering place for political ideas, it has become a gathering place for anyone who thrives on large gatherings, including drug dealers, thieves, transients and others with random, unrelated platforms hoping to steal the spotlight. The Occupy camp has passed its tipping point.

Which led me to think about more ordinary tipping points in life. 

In a disagreement, it’s the point where you feel you’ve won, lost, or forgot what the point was. This is the time to call a truce. But too often one side pushes too much for too long, reigniting the fire that was almost extinguished. My recent tipping point at work went something like this:

Me: You know, you are probably right.

Him: What? Ah, yes. Thank you.
Me: Ok, back to work! (here comes the tipping point…)
Him: You know, I’m right a lot more than you give me credit for.
Me: Huh? I thought we were done….
Him: I was right about that other thing a few weeks ago you fought me on, and remember that other thing five years ago you were wrong on too?  My ideas are not as bad as you think they are and it’s about time you finally gave me credit.
Me: Aaaahhhhhh!

As a teen, my love of yogurt hit a tipping point when my mother realized I liked it and added it to her weekly food-shopping list. First I was in yogurt heaven, feasting non-stop like royalty on my bountiful bacteria supply. But soon, my appetite couldn’t keep up with the abundance, and instead of being a yogurt-eating bundle of joy, I became the ingrate who let good food expire while others around the world were starving.

There’s even a traffic tipping point, where I know that if I’m the last car to pass through the first green light on 1A in Lynn headed towards Boston, I’ll hit every green light after. But if I’m the first car to hit red, my commute is doomed.

And perhaps there is even a life lesson to learn about tipping, as demonstrated by my favorite childhood ride, the Tilt-A-Whirl. Tip in the wrong direction and you’d wobble back and forth weakly with no momentum just waiting for the crappy ride to end. But tip in the right direction and you’d twirl around at top speed, jowls stuck to the back of the cart from the intensity, catching your breath just long enough before the end to exclaim “What a great ride, I wish it didn’t have to end!” Not a bad ending for a ride.

Or a life, for that matter.