My three brothers and I managed to provide our parents with ample opportunity to practice the delicate art of discipline. Fighting, screaming, yelling, pinching, hitting, beating, and attacking were our usual ways of displaying our love for each other. It must have nearly killed my parents. However, they seemed to always have something to say, and usually a little something extra for us, like a belt properly aligned with just the right velocity to render our seat unusable for about 10-15 minutes.
Often, in exasperation, we would be accosted for failure to do something that we had been told to do. This provided a rather nasty situation since we hadn’t really done anything wrong, we had just failed to do anything. In a way, this was like the one talent man in the Bible who was afraid and merely hid his talent rather than try to make something of it in trade. When his master returned, he was severely punished and his talent was taken from him. When Dad came in from work and we had failed him, I felt sure at the time that the same fate would be mine.
Once, when Dad came in and found us floundering, he raised his voice (and our fear level) and asked why we hadn’t done our work. We probably responded with some weak excuse like: “We didn’t know what to do!” and then he said the words I’ve never forgotten: “Well, do something, even if it’s wrong!” At the time, I’m sure I jumped and hit the hall running toward whatever it was I was supposed to be doing, but I still remember those words and use them to spur me on whenever I’m tempted to just stand around.
When I took the “Dale Carnegie Course in Public Speaking and Human Relations,” one of the things I was taught was how to get things done. As I recall, one night, during the class, we were taught a chant that we first whispered, then spoke, and finally shouted to get us going. The chant went like this: “I know men in the ranks who are going to stay in the ranks! Why!? I’ll tell you why! Simply because they haven’t the ability to get things done!” Upon further analysis, we discovered that people who get things done, move ahead. Those who move ahead tell us that they make decisions more quickly than those who do not move ahead.
I guess what I’m getting at is this: Making a quick decision usually tends to be more successful than waiting and wondering. We get our best “heart-felt” decisions that way. We are told that our first response is usually our best. So by saying “Do something, even if it’s wrong!”, Dad was telling me that action is better than inaction. Moving on is better than moping around wondering how bad things can get. Making a decision and working toward a goal is better than sitting down and crying about how bad things are.
I’m not sure I got all this from that one sentence from my childhood, but I have been able to build on it and make it work for me. To this day, I still find myself trying to say the same thing to my children. I look for different ways to say it and sometimes try to elaborate, as I’m sure my dad did, but they will probably remember it better if I’ll just stick to the original wizbit.
