Spinning

I was writing an e-mail to someone today and, in explaining something, I realized that I sounded a little like a control freak. So I mentioned that and said that wasn’t my motivation. I was just trying to be considerate. In other words, I put a spin on it to make myself look better.

I wonder how much we do this on a regular basis. I know politicians do it all the time. Something sounds like wasteful spending so they say that it is an improvement for the public good. A silly law is passed that is way to controlling and inconvenient and that is spun that it is for the public safety (see previous posting on “Random Searches”). Or, the real kicker, when a public figure is caught doing something wrong and it is spun that the facts have been distorted and someday the truth will come out. Of course, I love it when they say this and there is a tape or video of them doing that something wrong.

So is it wrong to try to put a spin on something in order to make it sound better? Is that akin to lying or is it just switching the truth around? I’m not sure. I think that sales reps do this all the time in order to sell their products. Or companies do it in order to explain why they have laid off people or closed locations. “We are consolidating our facilities in order to serve you better”. (In other words, we needed to shut down a few facilities because it is better to get rid of people than for the upper management to take a pay cut.) And, as I have mentioned, politicians do it all the time in order to convince the public that what they are doing is for their benefit.

Frankly, I don’t think I would want to live in the world if everyone wasn’t putting a spin on things. I don’t think I could handle that much truth being spewed forth. I prefer things to be a little sugar coated and spun in a way to make me feel better. That way I have a choice…either accept the spinning and think that everything is as happy as butterflies and daisies or bitch about how people are trying to spin things to make them better. I prefer to have that choice. And, no, I’m not being a control freak. I’m enjoying the freedom that I have been given as an inherent right. Yeah…that’s good spinning.