Podcast episode "069 For Want of a Package" (Influence Every Day) — Dr. Ed Tori uses a short personal anecdote (a delivered package) to reflect on the hidden, interconnected systems and people required for everyday goods to arrive. He invokes cultural examples (Ratatouille, Click, Jason Bourne, Guardians of the Galaxy) and the proverb "For Want of a Nail" to show cascading consequences, but focuses the episode on expressing gratitude to designers, engineers, factory workers, drivers, teachers, farmers, and the unseen forces that make life possible. The episode ends with a repeated call-to-action to share, rate, and review, and a sign-off encouraging listeners to "influence for good every day."
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This is Dr. Torrey. Welcome to the Influence Every Day show, where we make every day better and we influence for good.
I had an odd experience other day when a package arrived on my doorstep. Now the package arrived. It's sitting on my doorstep. It's simple, it's ordinary. Normally it would be forgettable, but when I picked it up this time, I had this weird experience. And I don't know if you've ever seen any movies where somebody has a flashback to something that occurred in the past. You may have seen the movie Ratatouille, where the food critic Anton Ego is. Is tasting Ratatouille, and he has a flashback to his childhood, and he remembers all the scenes and the smells and the love of his mother. You may remember. You may have seen Adam Sandler in the movie Click where he replays all of the scenes of his life that he missed. You may have seen Jason Bourne, the Jason Bourne series. In that series, he repeatedly has flashbacks to moments that he had forgotten simply because he picked up something, touched something, saw something, heard something. It immediately sends him back. The mixtape from Guardians of the Galaxy that Star Lord used, I think it was Peter Quill or whatever his name was, that he would listen to this mixtape from the 80s, and he had a flashback to his mother on her deathbed. Also in the 14th to 15th century, there was a, like. I don't know if you'd call it a poem, but it was like a tale, and it was called For Want of a Nail. I don't know if it's known who wrote it. For want of a nail. So someone is about to hammer a nail into a horseshoe because they're going to put a horseshoe on a horse. So the poem goes in reverse in a way. All of the downstream consequences from not having a nail. So it starts off like, for want of a nail, the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe, the horse was lost. For want of a horse, the rider was lost. For want of a rider, the battle was lost. For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost. All for the want of a nail. I hope I got that right. Nonetheless, the story goes that just simply not having a nail, there were all these downstream negative consequences. Now, what does this have to do with my package? I picked up the package, and all of a sudden I had this flood of thought that when was like, the driver who brought this here, he or she needed to be healthy, they needed to have a job, they needed to be able to walk, they needed to be able to carry the package. They carry the package, they Put it on my doorstep. They needed a truck. That truck needed parts. Those parts needed metal and other materials. Those materials needed mines and people in labs working on the material development. They needed people in the mines who harvest the materials for the different metals. The minds needed machines. The machines needed inventors. The inventors needed teachers. The teachers needed food. The food needed farmers. Right? The farmers needed sun and soil and all the other things that are provided by God and the unseen forces in the universe. Like all of these things, because a package arrived on my door. It's a single cardboard box delivered by thousands of invisible strings and threads that I didn't really ever consider. Now, think about it for a moment. That package, what was it, 20 bucks? What did I do? Hit add to cart and then click order. And all of that stuff had to happen before it got there. Now, we could take this in a completely different direction and start talking about there's exploitation and oppression, there's merciless business practices, there are tons of tyrannical governments, child labor working on the gadgets and working in mines and corrupt geopolitical manipulation going on and currency manipulation and all these other things. We could go down that route. We could go down the route of environmental destruction and all the things that are occurring. I'm not going down that route today. I certainly could. In fact, if you ever try to message me on social media or email and I don't reply, it's typically because I'm going down that rabbit hole and. And feeling some kind of way. But that's not what I'm doing today. Today. Instead, I want to say thank you as I picked up that package and I reflected on all of the things that occurred for that package to arrive. I just want to say thank you. I want to say thank you to that person or that team of people who thought of the product I ordered. I want to say thank you to the one who funded the idea, who believed in it early. Thank you to the designers who tweaked it and revised it in such a way that it's at its current state. Thank you to the engineers who solved the sticky problems along the way. Thank you to the factory workers who crafted each piece. Thank you to the hands that packed the box, that sealed it with tape and that printed the label. Thank you to the people who wrote the code so that add to cart actually works. And that as my data stream through that, my personal data and my financial data was relatively secure. Thank you to those coders. Thank you to the drivers who wake up early who might miss their kids, games or dinners or time with family or may not have a family. Thank you to those drivers who worked those long hours. Thank you to the sorters and the loaders and the forklift drivers. Thank you to the ones who work at the conveyor belts. Thank you to the mechanics who kept the trucks in order. Thank you to the tire makers and the metal workers. Thank you to the teachers who taught them. Thank you to the parents and the caregivers who raised them. Thank you to the farmers who fed them. And thank you to the source of rain and sun and soil and all that is good in the world and all that makes this stuff possible. To all of you, I see you, I appreciate you and I thank you. I'll see you in the next steps.
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