Trask Avenue

Everywhere we turn we’re told what we can’t do. Just once I’d like to come across a sign that said, “Yes, you can do that!” Yes, you can park here on Saturday! Yes, you can go into the water without a lifeguard present! Yes, you can enter without proper authorization! Yes, you can bring in outside snacks! Yes, you can be seated without a shirt or shoes! Granted, I may have to rethink that one. Regardless, it often feels as if the entire population is being given a stern passive-aggressive talking to through scolding signs.

Basically every rule or law (or commandment for that matter) ever written is aimed at not allowing people to do stuff. It’s all about pulling in the reins, man. Sure, if some edict is too binding it may get amended to appease those who complained, but that’s about loosening straps already in place. Don’t kid yourself. The straps ain’t going away. They’re simply being fastened on a different notch.

No doubt we humans can be a handful. If nothing else we’re a contrary bunch. It’s easy to understand how it came to be that everything was built upon a foundation of No. In many ways we’ve earned it. Yet you’d like to think we’ve reached a point in our evolution where we don’t need to be reminded what we can’t do every 15 steps. You’d like to think most of us have the good judgment not to cross 5th Avenue against the light or jump into the lion enclosure at the zoo. And if we don’t possess that basic level of common sense a sign isn’t going to stop us anyway.

People complain there’s too much negativity in the world. Perhaps one small way to counter this is through a grassroots movement to balance out all the “Don’t” and “No” signs with “Do” and “Yes” signs. It may be true most of these new signs designed to encourage us would say things as glaringly obvious as some of those old discouraging ones, but that’s okay. We all like positive reinforcement, don’t we? Yes we do!