The Power of 40,000

Many years ago, I was contacted by the Nielson Ratings Company. They would connect a box to my TV and it would track everything that we watched. They collected this data and determined what TV shows were popular. I don’t know if they are still around today. If they are, with all the digital ways to watch anything, they are probably tracking things differently now.

In the course of the interview – because that’s what it was – an interview to see if we were a good fit – I asked how many households does my “box” represent. I was astounded when she said 40,000 households. If I watched one TV show, it was like 40,000 other homes were tuned into the same program.

I didn’t get selected to be a part of their analysis. They called a few days later and said that they had enough candidates in my area. [I think it had something to do with my comment that I like to watch PBS and the History Channel.]

But it really got my thinking. The power of 40,000. What if that carried over into other areas of my life? If I leave the water running when I brush my teeth [I don’t] instead of 2 gallons going down the drain, what if it were 80,000 gallons going down the drain? If I open my car door and a napkin blows out onto the ground, do I just leave it because it is one little napkin? What if it’s really 40,000 napkins? After all, if you notice the trash that collects on the side of the road, you can’t help but realize that each of those pieces of trash came from one individual at a time. Times 40,000.

The ocean is so polluted with plastic that they now say that every fish in the ocean has plastic in its system. They call it the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and it is twice the size of Texas. All because one person threw one plastic bottle over the side of a ship.

And it isn’t all negative. What if one kind word to a cashier is the same as 40,000 kind words? An extra dollar in the tip jar means $40,000 extra dollars in tip jars all over the community? Donate one can of food to the food bank, one dollar to the homeless shelter, pick up one piece of trash on the sidewalk,

If someone cuts me off when driving, I try to smile and give them grace. Because then they smile and maybe give someone else grace.

Maybe you’ve heard the old story. A boss is in a bad mood. He comes to work and yells at his employee who spends the day in a bad mood. She yells at the delivery guy for being late. He goes home and yells at his child for something minor and she goes to her room and kicks the dog. All because the boss had a bad day.

So I’m trying to look at my life a little differently. I’m trying to imagine that everything I do is magnified by 40,000. Would you join me?