There is an old saying, "If you want something done, do it yourself." It gives commentary (and some criticism) on self-reliance vs. relying on others. By completing whatever-it-is yourself, you can be absolutely sure that it is done, both to your standards and in a timely manner. It's also a useful phrase to shut up someone who is talking (complaining) more than they are doing.
The reason I bring this up is that I recently had an experience in which my actions were strongly influenced by this phrase. I was watching a Youtube video, and part-way through the video, a clip from a song is played. I was curious about the song, but to my (and judging by the comments, many other peoples) chagrin, the song was not mentioned in the credits. At least, not entirely. The title of the song was not given, merely the artist. Looking through the comments, two things became clear very quickly: 1) many people were interested in what the song was, and 2) no one seemed to know what the name of the song was. In fact, the only response someone posted was a patently wrong answer, giving an incorrect name to the song, crediting the wrong artist, and saying that it features a band that I'm not even sure exists!
Okay, so, that person is hugely unreliable.
Apparently, it fell to me to look up the mystery song, because it was clear no one else had (or would, by the looks of things). And I was curious, I'll admit it. What followed was a long, somewhat tedious look (and listen) through the song archives of the credited artist, trying to find the one song I wanted. I was able to narrow down my search figuring that it fell within a specific genre, and was able to compartmentalize further by sorting by length. I found the song earlier than I was expecting (the song was one of the shorter ones, less than three minutes, if I recall correctly). I remember thinking, 'If this isn't the song I'm looking for, it is darned close!' followed closely by, 'Wait! Go back go back go back! That was the part! That was the part they used!'
Mystery solved.
This isn't the first time I've had to deal with this kind of nonsense. Certainly, back when I was in high school, whenever I made some reference that the people around me didn't understand, rather than look it up, they would just pester me until I would say/explain in detail what I was talking about. I think that may have fueled some of my anti-social behavior; the feeling that I was surrounded by these people who couldn't be bothered to put in the effort to look up this thing. I would repeatedly feel annoyance with a side of dismissive thoughts, and a hint of irritation (most likely because they wouldn't let my read my book in peace).
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