It's the thought that counts?

Some nights I can't sleep and I let those everyday random thoughts boil around in my brain like lobsters in a pot. Tonight I rehashed my least favorite excuse of all time: intentions. Yes, everybody likes to think, Oh, Johnny meant well last night, but it's too bad he got fired from his job. And My Rasputin teaches the NLP concept of positive intentions: All actions come from a place of positive intention, but they may not end up positively. So it is our duty to figure out the positive intention, learn from it, and then in the next situation (Johnny calls into work to be 15 minutes late because he helped a friend with homework, instead of calling in sick because he figures it's not worth the effort), fix it.

Most of the positive intentions are more outward-reaching than the pretty lame Johnny example used above. I'm sure everyone can think of a good example, but here's another one: Jane wants to get her mom a present to make her mom happy with her, and Jane's idea of a perfect present would be a nice new sweater, so this is what she gives her mom. Unfortunately, Jane didn't take the time to figure out what her mom really wanted, which was a new tablecloth. While Jane's mom is pleased at the present, Jane is miffed because her mom isn't raving about it. Jane meant well, but didn't go past the good intention to finding out what the best result would be in the end. Not like you have to ruin a surprise, but it's pretty easy to snoop around and figure stuff like that out.

So, if every action has a positive intention, what about all the crappiness in the world that we so like to blame on pretty much everybody except our immediate selves? Pedophilia is disgusting, but it fulfills a positive intention on the pedophile's part to satisfy his/her inner need. So he/she MEANS well. Is that a good excuse? Granted, there are levels to any behavior. Giving the wrong gift is nowhere near as bad as pedophilia. Everybody gives a bad gift every once in awhile. This should not be punished (we'll go into death for molesters later); but there has to be some way to call people on their misguided good intentions.

To make a small leap, this is why I find the label of "hate crime" a little dubious. I could easily cause problems for someone by upping a simple assault into a hate crime assault. Should I do so? No. If they came at me yelling anti-Semetic comments, would I then report it as a hate crime? I'm not sure you can; I think it's a designation police make. Because no matter what the motivation (the positive intention) is, we as people in general can only judge the RESULT of the intention, not the motive. I can SEE and PROSECUTE an assault case. If there are no witnesses either way, can we prove it is a hate crime? There are some clearcut ones, don't get me wrong (graffiti and bombings and such like), but the end RESULT is the same. Either we judge every single crime based on supposed motive, or none. "Crime of passion" is a careless designation as well; I don't care if it's been planned for 4 years or 4 seconds, a murder is a murder and a beating is a beating.

Part of this was brought on by reading an article on how women talk. I want to have a Talk with someone soon, and I realized that all the sentences I've been rehearsing in my head were filled with this "woman talk": self-deprecating, vacillating, unsure. That made me mad at myself. My positive intention is to state my opinion on a particular subject, and elicit the other person's opinion on the same. I mean very well with this future conversation, but I believe it will go awry if I speak too "womanly". The end result will be influenced, I am sure, by how I state the words, and I can guarantee I will be judged not on my good intentions, but on the result of the conversation.

Trite but true: Actions speak louder than words. And in my world, actions are results while words are intentions; I'd much rather get results than be left floating around in intentions.