Buttercups or Poison Ivy?

Scents-itivity Management

OMG! People: Learn to adapt!

In the winter when it’s blowing snow, do you get better results by stopping the wind or wearing a coat?

Similarly, people with sense reactions to their environment (scents, sights, sounds, touch and tastes) serve themselves and their social groups better by learning to adapt rather than change or attempt to modify their environment bubble.

If you don’t like bright lights, you wear sunglasses.

If you don’t like to feel cold or hot, you wear a sweater or short sleeves

If you don’t like loud sounds, you wear ear plugs

If you don’t like the taste of coffee, you drink tea

If you don’t like a smell – you mask it.

Some perspective:

Most elementary schools today have ‘nut bans’ this means no nuts or product that’s been in contact with nuts are permitted on the school grounds. Nut allergies are serious and require constant vigilance. An army of teachers, monitoring a school yard of children cannot be held responsible simply because kids will be kids, and contact could mean death – the ban is put in place.  Makes sense right?

However, we also need to step back and look at the bigger picture.

Once these children enter high school, they are required to learn to adapt and monitor their own allergies – as if they were adults. It’s the schools responsibility at this stage to prepare these kids for the real world and adult hood. This means self-control, environment awareness and wise decision making.

And this is a peanut allergy – which can lead to DEATH. Yet they are required to deal with it.

They have to.

Because that’s what being an adult means.

Scents-itivity is the new ‘poor me syndrome’.  In the past, most people respond with “Suck it up Buttercup”. But the current politically correct policies are now pandering to this sorrowful group. EVERY ONE has smells they don’t like. Yes! Most people DO get headaches from some of those smells. This is why aroma therapy is so effective – duh. But most grownups simply deal with it either by avoidance, or self-adaptation.  Forcing the group to modify their behaviour when it’s simpler for an individual to adapt their own is ludicrous. It’s like telling the wind to stop blowing.

We have too long travelled the dangerous path of eliminating some of the very traits that made us the dominant species. Already common sense and self-reliance is fast becoming a recessive gene. By continuing to pander and coddle the weakest and most vulnerable in the herd we will stop the only trait we have that will take us into the future beyond our global crisis; adaptation.  Human’s greatest survival skill has always been adaptation.

We lose that and we can

kiss our ass good bye.

Cull the herd?

No! We need to take care of our sick and dying. We need to begin as early as possible to

provide them with the skills, tools and abilities to adapt

to their environment – stop bubble wrapping the world. Stop inhibiting freedoms of the many to cater to the view. Stop. Just stop.  You’re not doing them any favours by safety-sealing life.

Some great tips from professionals, who deal with odours far more sickening than patchouli oil, body spray, hair products, fabric softeners, or whatever other mystery substance the ‘scents-itive’ individual has come up with, include:

·       Find a favourite hand lotion and dab a small amount on your philtrum

·       Sucking on a menthol or peppermint candy helps refocus your senses

·       Breath through your mouth, this bypasses your olfactory nerves and is one of the quickest ways to counter act an unfavourable odour

·       Breathe deeply. Not always effective, but in most cases you can fool your olfactory senses to no longer react to some over powering scents

·       Aroma therapy of your own.  Unlit candles, or other room deodorizers can help elevate strong odours

As for modifying your environment, this is an impossible task particularly when in a public place or populated work space. Please, regardless of how much more ‘scents-itive’ you may think you are, do yourself a favour and show some consideration and respect for others – keep it to yourself.

It does nothing but cause frustration and bad feelings.  

So Suck it up Buttercup. Grab an air freshener and move on. There are more important things in life that trying to change everyone one else.