I apply the 80/20 rule that I learned in Marketing, to my everyday life. [If you do not know what that is, here's a pretty basic definition: the 80-20 rule]

Last night I was out, talking to my friend over drinks at a restaurant, when I burst out laughing for what seemed like no reason. She was like, "What is so funny?" I felt the urge to explain.

Minutes prior, me and another gentleman sitting two tables away had agreed that the restaurant's staff had half-assed the birthday song. Like it lasted LESS than 10 seconds. When the staff finished, I looked at him, and he looked at me because we both said, "That's it?" at the same time. We laughed, and he said, "They deserve better than that!" And I was like, "I KNOW RIGHT!? What kind of half ass singing was that. We should go sing to them to make it up to them". He goes, "Want to?" And in that moment, our eyes locked, and we KNEW magic was going to happen. We both excused ourselves from our dates, and walked over to the table across the restaurant. I was like, "Whose birthday is it?" The people at the table pointed to a woman holding a child on her lap. I said, "It's your birthday?" She she awkwardly smiled and nodded yes. So I said, "Well me and my new friend think the restaurant really dropped the ball on your song, so we're going to sing to you too!"

Then, we sang the most random duet of 'Happy Birthday to you' ever. It was like we were both improv-ing a song that everyone should know. [and for those that know me well, you KNOW I can't sing, but God blessed me last night and I didn't sound terrible]. So we sing this song, and the entire table was like, "That's awesome thanks!" Me and my new friend walk back towards our tables and he goes, "Man, I wanted to be a duet with you, but I had no idea where you were going with it". I replied, "Honestly, me either. But, we made it work". We shook hands and returned to our dates.

NONE of this is what made me laugh. This was just a typical night out with Brian.

What made me laugh was this:  It was probably 10 minutes later before I realized we were all different races. I realized that I could have sung a line in the song in Spanish since the woman whom was having the birthday is a Latina, and I never get to sing in Spanish. Then, I realized my new friend that helped sing was black. THEN, I realized my date was Asian. And that was funny to me, because for the past two weeks most of what I've seen on Facebook deals with race and racism. Yet, it took me several minutes to even realize people were different races, we were all just humans doing something nice for other humans.

SO THIS takes me back to the 80/20 rule. I really believe that the majority of people in the US are not racist. However, the 20% that are, are the ones that make the news, because it is a lot sexier for one of the 6 media companies in the US [look it up, 6 companies control 90% of our media [that isn't just tv, but magazines and newspapers] to put up racially charged articles [they get a lot of clicks] than put up, "Hey, 80% of people aren't jerks, and we all kind of like each other".

Our goal should be to work on that 20% whom are racists, and figure out what we can do to change their minds. Leave your thoughts in the comments.