The Chicken with a Hangover

Chickens aren’t among God’s brightest creatures, and the image of a hungover chicken is almost too sad to contemplate. Nevertheless, there is a lesson therein.

Actually, I’m playing fast and loose with two different descriptors of the same phenomenon. “The chickens coming home to roost” and suffering a nasty hangover after a night of partying are just different pictures for the same reality. Ancient wisdom says “you reap what you sow”. All the same idea.

The principle works the same way for an individual as it does for society as a whole. If I am undisciplined about my eating habits and never exercise, I should not complain about inevitable health consequences. If I spend all my money on whims, with no budget, I can’t complain if I end up broke. You reap what you sow.

Businesses suffer hangovers. Sure, you want to maximize your bottom-line take home profit, but if you do so by not investing in planning, being chintzy on capital improvements and/or underpaying your people, you shouldn’t be surprised when the bailiff locks your doors. You reap what you sow.

Societies inevitably suffer hangovers. Take slavery, for example. A society which imports shiploads of human beings stolen from their homeland in chains, buys and sells them like chickens and goats, rapes their women only to put the offspring on the auction block, and sells fathers upriver and mothers downriver, only grudgingly giving up the practice at the point of a bayonet, cannot be surprised to have a “black problem”. Seen correctly, it’s actually a “white problem”. You reap what you sow.

Fortunately, if you stop before the chicken gets really drunk, things can turn out better. I may be thirty pounds overweight, but regular exercise and sensible eating can turn that around. If I start paying my people fairly and invest intelligently in capital equipment, my business can thrive. And perhaps if we get honest about the “white problem”, we can begin to solve it, at least going forward.

Interestingly enough, COVID and the associated lockdown have forced most of us to rethink everything about our business models, our lifestyles, and our values. A lot of things which were “essential” a few months ago have been shown to be otherwise.

The commute times we have been given back and the money we aren’t spending on venti grande double mochas are gifts, not to be squandered. So far, most of us have dodged the worst of the COVID bullet. For many, perhaps most, of us, we’re being given a chance to sober up the chicken before it’s too late.

Let’s use the opportunity wisely. The chance may not come around again.